Estranhas Coisas de Paris

Jean Renoir will always be judged by his timeless pre-war French classics which means that his subsequent films invariably fall short. This is the third of his 'trilogy' from the 1950's. It is not quite as bad as 'La Carosse d'Or' but not nearly as good as 'French Cancan'.

Ravishingly shot by Claude Renoir, it begins promisingly with the blossoming romance between luminous Ingrid Bergman and elegant Mel Ferrer but the director has alas plumped for a strange concoction of romantic melodrama and slapstick farce and ultimately the film works as neither. Love conquers all at the end which is a relief because it means the film is finally over.

Apparently Rossellini advised his wife to work with Renoir and Bergman. Having made this dud with the former she had to wait twenty years to work with the latter which produced the masterpiece 'Autumn Sonata'.