Marcel Blistene was an odd-job man of the French cinema.His movies dealt with Edith Piaf,comics character Bibi Fricotin,saints ("Le Sorcier Du Ciel" a biopic of the Curé D'Ars which I saw at Sunday school and which scared me to death)and more..
"Le Feu Dans La Peau" got a PG 18 when it was released and vetoed by the Centrale Catholique Du Cinema" that deemed it "immoral" .It did not spare the viewer the sordid details.The characters are defective people who look like Emile Zola's minus the writer's genius.
A peasant meets a city girl (Giselle Pascal)during his military service;he takes her to his farm where his sexually-repressed brother (Raymond Pellegrin)and a crude servant (Nadine Basile ) live . The men are bestial brutes ,the women sluts or false virtuous ladies.The screenplay is sometimes very weak:for instance,Pierre (Philippe Lemaire) appears and disappears without much purpose ,which makes the viewer think that the whole thing was made haphazard .
A note about the actors:
Raymond Pellegrin goes to great pains to give his character substance ;by far the best actor of the cast,he is to be commended considering the limits he is working under.He was Giselle Pascal' s husband in real life.
Giselle Pascal had reportedly an affair with Gary Cooper before marrying Pellegrin.She never made a truly memorable movie,with the eventual exception of "Horizons sans Fin" (Jean Dréville,1952) which was about pilot Helene Boucher.
Nadine Basile was specialized in demeaning parts (see also "La Neige Etait Sale"),a nasty Arlette Thomas who also played parts today's actresses would not even think of.
