French Dressing (1964)

Director:

Ken Russell

Writers:

Peter Brett (screenplay)
Ronald Cass (original screenplay)

Release Date:

April 1964 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman

Cast

James Booth	...	Jim Stephens
Roy Kinnear	...	Henry Liggott
Marisa Mell	...	Françoise Fayol
Alita Naughton	...	Judy
Bryan Pringle	...	The Mayor
Robert Robinson	...	Himself
Germaine Delbat	...	French woman
Norman Pitt	...	Westbourne Mayor
Henry McCarty	...	Bridgemouth Mayor
Sandor Elès	...	Vladek
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lucille Soong	...	Starlet

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:A

Filming Locations:

Cornwall, England, UK

Company:

Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC)

Trivia:

There is a missing scene between where Françoise agrees to join Jim and Henry at their place. This was Ken Russell's favorite scene in the entire movie but it was dropped by the producers, hence the unexplained cut between France and the pier of Gormleigh.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Catch Us If You Can (1965)

There's disagreement, and there's discourtesy

I am certainly not above criticism. I get things badly wrong sometimes. Visitors to IMDb often correct me in forthright terms, and when they do, I write to thank them. However, it's one thing to point out errors, and quite another to trash an honest opinion because it doesn't happen to chime with your own.

The other person who has reviewed "French Dressing" (probably the only other person who has SEEN it) goes by the nickname of 'hernebay'. This individual accuses my review of 'hastiness' (evidence, please?) and tells the world that my description of the film is 'distorted by ... animosity'. I challenge hernebay, or anyone for that matter, to point to a single inaccuracy in my review. Where are these distortions?

I take it that I am included among 'those determined to make hostile judgments'. This is simply wrong. I watched the film and found it weak and unconvincing. Hernebay cannot possibly comment on my state of mind as I saw the opening credits rolling. He or she does me a disservice by accusing me of bias. But then, Ken Russell himself (we learn from hernebay) didn't understand the film, and he directed it!

If I am open to criticism because I mention the film's stock devices, so be it. The feeble humour on display owes more to the Boulting Brothers and Ealing than to 1960's 'with-it' sensibility, and the lame gags were already old by 1963 - it is no argument at all to claim that we're viewing this tawdry effort from the wrong end of the 60's.

The film is about much more, hernebay tells us, than a French sex-bomb meeting randy English councillors. Viewers who can find more to it than that are welcome to write to me and explain whatever it is that I'm missing. What it's REALLY about, according to hernebay, is 'a loving parody of the French Nouvelle Vague' (dealt with in my review, actually), 'wistful lyricism' (praised in my review, actually) and what hernebay sees as links forward in time to a TV series (these links are not explained) and backwards to Victorian operetta (oh come on!)

I pointed out that the film catches one of the first whiffs of vibrant-youth-versus-pompous-middle-age, that overused 1960's format, and went on to explain that "French Dressing" is just too early to do it properly, remaining stylistically and psychologically in the 1950's of Jimmy Porter and Archie Rice. Hernebay tries to have it both ways, blaming me for not understanding the stuffy mood of 1963 (Christine Keeler etc.), and at the same time not seeing that this is the first of the "pop" films. Anyone who cares to read what I actually wrote may feel that these carpings are unwarranted.

I didn't CONCEDE that Naughton is pretty. I SAID she is. My point was that she disappeared after this flop. Hernebay points out that she starred in another damp Russell squib. My point exactly! The reason why her stocking-tops are ridiculous is that she has just removed a pair of jeans. Perhaps hernebay knows a lot of women who wear stockings and suspenders under jeans. I don't. Hernebay thinks the cinema riot is well filmed, and on that point we will never agree. See the film and form your own view.

I am, it seems, hostile and prejudiced. In a sense, this is true. I am hostile and prejudiced towards slapdash films which try to be funny but fail miserably. Hernebay gives Russell credit for knowing that parts of a Kent town would collapse in the following decade. Pardon me for not commending the auteur's prescience.

If hernebay had taken the trouble to read any of my other reviews, he/she would have seen that for my summary I almost always lift an apt quotation from the screenplay. It is simply foolish and unfair to accuse me of not knowing what I was doing when I quoted Judy.

There is a difference between defending a much-loved work from unmerited abuse, and simply refusing to acknowledge its weaknesses, just as there is a difference between honestly disagreeing with someone, and mounting a discourteous attack on him.