User reviews

This is only the fourth movie directed by Albert Valentin I've seen. L'entraîneuse, Marie Martine, la Vie de plaisir are great titles that represent perfectly French quality cinema. This comedy is not as good, but it's really entertaining thanks to Charles Spaak' dialogues told dynamically fast by the entire punchy casting, especially Jean Tissier, André Bruno and Jacqueline Bouvier (Pagnol in her first movie), this dynamy is certainly due to Albert Valentin'intelligent capacity of directing. This comedy and the 3 other great titles I've seen convinced me to search other Albert Valentin' titles.

Another main quality of this comedy is the cinematography by Jean Bachelet with constant camera movements in alchimy with the fast dialogues. Jean Bachelet has worked on great titles directed by the best directors : Jean Renoir (Nana, le Crime de Mr Lange, Madame Bovary), Sacha Guitry (Désiré, la Malibran, Pasteur, la Poison) and even Robert Siodmack (See Odd Mack as he called himself) (Mister Flow).

Any books on these two great creators, Jean Bachelet and Albert Valentin?

Compared to "Marie -Martine" and "la vie de plaisir" ,Albert Valentin's great movies also made during the dark days of the occupation ,"la maison des sept jeunes filles" is eminently forgettable ;based on a forgotten novel of Georges Simenon , do not expect a detective story either.....

Plot : a boarding-school for girls is crippled with debts ; the headmaster has seven daughters (check the title) and one of his creditors,a forty-something , could play the role of the Prince Charming and marry one of the girls who are not prepared to accept it and do their best to displease the greybeard.Fortunately , Coco ,the prettiest of them all, "fishes" a young noble ,but he is broke too.

This is a harmless comedy , enjoyable mainly in its first part :the prize giving day,now a thing of the past , sees the headmaster's brilliant daughter Coco make a clean sweep of the books ,much to the other parents' displeasure , who want to put their girls -who were awarded tiny books or nothing-in another school .But the one and only reason you would watch this movie is Jean Tissier as the rich creditor who wants to take his time to choose his fiancée among the seven beauties of the house (including Mrs Pagnol aka Jacqueline Bouvier): an unctuous old fogey ,he blows everyone off the screen with his smooth talk and his sickly sweet smile .The second part , in which he is less present , suffers accordingly.