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Fans of Jean Renoir will rush to see something ‘new’ from the great director; this very different Renoir picture sees him filming in the South of France, among regional laborers that bring their Italian and Spanish customs with them. It’s a tragedy about a crime of passion, all shot outside of a film studio, without big stars or glamorous trappings.

Toni

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1040

1935 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 84 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 25, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Blavette, Celia Montalvan, Édouard Delmont, Max Dalban, Jenny Hélia, Michel Kovachevitch, Andrex.

Cinematography: Claude Renoir

Film Editors: Suzanne de Troeye, Marguerite Renoir

Original Music: Paul Bozzi

Written by Jean Renoir from material by Jacques Levert

Produced by Marcel Pagnol

Directed by Jean Renoir

We’re told that in 1933 Jean Renoir was stinging from some pictures that didn’t go over well with the public, including the classic comedy-drama Boudou Saved from Drowning.

Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...