Les dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)

A society lady engineers a marriage between her lover and a cabaret dancer who is essentially a prostitute.

Director:

Robert Bresson

Writers:

Robert Bresson (scenario & adaptation), Denis Diderot (story),

Stars:

Paul Bernard, María Casares, Elina Labourdette

Cast

Cast overview:
Paul Bernard	...	Jean
María Casares	...	Hélène
Elina Labourdette	...	Agnès
Lucienne Bogaert	...	Mme. D
Jean Marchat	...	Jacques
Yvette Etiévant	...	La bonne
Marcel Rouzé
Bernard La Jarrige
Lucy Lancy
Nicole Regnault
Emma Lyonel
Marguerite de Morlaye

Storyline

Realizing that her lover (Jean) is losing interest in her, a society lady (Hélène) gets revenge by tricking him into marrying a former prostitute (Agnès). After the wedding Helene tells a stunned Jean about his wife's secret past, but the ending has more than one surprise twist. This is a modernized but fairly faithful adaptation of the story of Madame de La Pommeraye from Denis Diderot's novel Jacques le Fataliste.

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Plot Keywords:

prostitute | marriage | wedding | dancer | cabaret dancer | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

3 April 1964 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ladies of the Park

Filming Locations:

Studios Pathé-Cinéma - 6 rue Francoeur, Paris 18, Paris, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Films Raoul Ploquin

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

When Agnes falls after dancing in her apartment, her head is seen resting upon the skirt of her costume. But in the close shot when her mother goes to her, her head is seen to be on the floor.

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Quotes

Jean: Since we met, I've felt attached to you by a string. I simply follow it.
Agnès: Is that string called indiscretion?

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Connections

Referenced in 2 x 50 Years of French Cinema (1995)

User Reviews

Masterpiece

It is Bresson's most accessible, classically structured film. Taken from Diderot, it is a story of love, betrayal and revenge. Why a masterpiece? Because it is one of the few films which manage to give the viewer a true sense of what love is and/or should be, of what it may achieve, avoiding the corny lexicon of romance, turning the potentially stale conventions of melodrama into an altogether plausible concoction of events, gestures, actions directly speaking to our experience. In its perfectly self-contained way it keeps showing us again and again that people may actually love each other, in spite of all.