Is Paris Burning? (1966) Paris brûle-t-il? (original title)

Director:

René Clément

Writers:

Larry Collins (book) and
Dominique Lapierre (book) ...
(more)

Release Date:

1966 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | History | War

Plot:

The true story of the departure of the German occupiers from Paris in 1944.

Plot Keywords:

General | Swedish | French Resistance | City | Flag

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Jean-Paul Belmondo	...	Pierrelot - Yvon Morandat
Charles Boyer	...	Docteur Monod
Leslie Caron	...	Françoise Labé
Jean-Pierre Cassel	...	Lieutenant Henri Karcher
George Chakiris	...	GI in Tank
Bruno Cremer	...	Colonel Rol Tanguy
Claude Dauphin	...	Colonel Lebel
Alain Delon	...	Jacques Chaban-Delmas
Kirk Douglas	...	Gen. George S. Patton Jr.
Pierre Dux	...	Cerat - Alexandre Parodi
Glenn Ford	...	Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley
Gert Fröbe	...	General Dietrich von Choltitz (as Gert Froebe)
Daniel Gélin	...	Yves Bayet
Georges Géret	...	The Baker
Hannes Messemer	...	General Jodl
Harry Meyen	...	Lieutenant von Arnim
Yves Montand	...	Sgt. Marcel Bizien
Anthony Perkins	...	Sgt. Warren
Michel Piccoli	...	Edgar Pisani
Wolfgang Preiss	...	Capitaine Ebernach
Claude Rich	...	General Le Clerc
Simone Signoret	...	Cafe Owner
Robert Stack	...	Brig. General Wm L. Sibert
Jean-Louis Trintignant	...	Capitaine Serge
Pierre Vaneck	...	Maj. Roger Gallois
Marie Versini	...	Claire Morandat
Skip Ward	...	Charlie, un soldat U.S.
Orson Welles	...	Consul Raoul Nordling
Michel Etcheverry	...	Préfet Luizet
Billy Frick	...	Adolf Hitler
Ernst Fritz Fürbringer	...	General von Voineburg (as Ernst Fritz Fuerbringer)
Konrad Georg	...	Gen. Field Marshal Model
Joachim Hansen	...	Commandant prison de Fresnes
Félix Marten	...	Georges Landrieu
Paloma Matta	...	Lilane Charvet, la jeune mariée
Günter Meisner	...	Commandant SS à Pantin (as Guenter Meisner)
Sacha Pitoëff	...	Joliot-Curie
Albert Rémy	...	Policeman / Le gendarme
Christian Rode	...	Soldat allemand brûlé
Helmuth Schneider	...	Adjudant allemand métro
Otto Stern	...	Soldat allemand métro
Tony Taffin	...	Bernard Labé
Jean Valmont	...	F.F.I. bazooka
Karl-Otto Alberty	...	SS - tapisserie de Bayeux (as Karl Otto Alberty)
Pierre Collet	...	Un policier résistant
Paul Crauchet	...	Priest
Germaine de France	...	Old lady
Bernard Fresson	...	Agent de liaison F.F.I.
Michel Gonzalès	...	Étudiant résistant
Peter Jacob	...	Génaral Burgdorf / Gen. Burgdorf
Hubert de Lapparent	...	L'huissier à Matignon
Roger Lumont	...	Jade Amicol
Pierre Mirat	...	Patron du bistro Medicis
Francis Nani	...	Étudiant resistant
Peter Neusser	...	SS - tapisserie de Bayeux
Sébastien Poitrenaud	...	Étudiant resistant
Jean-Michel Rouzière	...	Le monsieur au petit chien
Georges Staquet	...	Capitaine Dronne
Hénia Suchar	...	La standardiste de la préfecture
Claude Vernier	...	Prisonnier allemand
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Georges Aminel	...	(voice) (uncredited)
Roland Armontel	...	Foot passenger (uncredited)
Georges Ass	...	Un prisonnier à Pantin (uncredited)
Philippe Baronnet	...	A resister (uncredited)
Michel Berger	...	Chief of Explosives (uncredited)
Georges Bidault	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Paul Bisciglia	...	Un homme sur un char (uncredited)
Paul Bonifas	...	Mayor (uncredited)
Gerhard Bormann	...	(uncredited)
Colette Brosset	...	(uncredited)
Georges Béreux	...	(uncredited)
Georges Carnazzo	...	(uncredited)
Adrien Cayla-Legrand	...	Un prisonnier à Pantin (uncredited)
Georges Claisse	...	Intern with Monod (uncredited)
Louis Daquin	...	(uncredited)
Charles de Gaulle	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Suzy Delair	...	Une Parisienne (uncredited)
Patrick Dewaere	...	A young resister (uncredited)
Guy Di Rigo	...	A G.I. (uncredited)
C.O. Erickson	...	(uncredited)
Pierre Fabrice	...	(uncredited)
André Falcon	...	Member of Resistance council (uncredited)
Pascal Fardoulis	...	Gilet (uncredited)
Roland Fleury	...	A G.I. (uncredited)
Michel Fugain	...	A young resistant (uncredited)
Monique Fusier	...	(uncredited)
Lutz Gabor	...	German officer (uncredited)
Clara Gansard	...	Wife of Col. Tanguy (uncredited)
Marcel Gassouk	...	Un prisonnier allemand (uncredited)
Rol Gauffin	...	(uncredited)
Jeanne Herviale	...	Bit part (uncredited)
Claus Holm	...	Huhm (uncredited)
Jean-Pierre Honoré	...	Alain Perpezat (uncredited)
Nicole Jonesco	...	(uncredited)
Catherine Kamenka	...	Diane (uncredited)
Billy Kearns	...	Patton Aide (uncredited)
Pierre Koenig	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Jacques Lalande	...	Policeman (uncredited)
Viviane Landford	...	(uncredited)
Joëlle LaTour	...	Young Girl with Warren (uncredited)
Yves le Trocquer	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Jacques Leclerc	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Rudy Lenoir	...	German officer (uncredited)
Michael Lonsdale	...	Debu-Bridel (uncredited)
Jacques Léonard	...	American soldier (uncredited)
Rico López	...	(uncredited)
Maria Machado	...	Stella (uncredited)
Philippe March	...	Roland Pré (uncredited)
E.G. Marshall	...	Intelligence Officer Powell (uncredited)
Mike Marshall	...	F.F.I. (uncredited)
Yves-Marie Maurin	...	(uncredited)
Raymond Meunier	...	(uncredited)
Jean Michaud	...	Le commandant à Matignon (uncredited)
Harald Momm	...	Colonel Jay (uncredited)
Georges Montant	...	A doctor (uncredited)
Russ Moro	...	(uncredited)
Del Negro	...	Officer with Chaban-Delmas (uncredited)
Jean Négroni	...	Villon (uncredited)
Alexandre Parodi	...	Himself (in victory walk) (archive footage) (uncredited)
Roger Pera	...	A G.I. (uncredited)
Raymond Pierson	...	(uncredited)
Policard	...	(uncredited)
Alain Pommier	...	Franjoux (uncredited)
Georges Poujouly	...	Landrieux (uncredited)
Jacques Préboist	...	L'homme qui se rase à sa fenêtre (uncredited)
Michel Puterflam	...	Laffont (uncredited)
Serge Rousseau	...	Col. Fabien (uncredited)
André Rouyer	...	(uncredited)
Tony Rödel	...	Un officier allemand invité de Von Choltiz / German officer (uncredited)
Michel Sales	...	Galois's friend (uncredited)
Jacques Santi	...	A resistant (uncredited)
Michel Sardou	...	A young resistant (uncredited)
Wolfgang Sauer	...	Hégel (uncredited)
Pierre Tamin	...	Maurannes (uncredited)
Jean-Paul Tribout	...	A young resistant (uncredited)
Ronald Urban	...	German soldier (uncredited)
Cécile Vassort	...	Une jeune femme (uncredited)
Pierre Vaudier	...	(uncredited)
Hans Verner	...	(uncredited)
Joe Warfield	...	Major with Chaban-Delmas (uncredited)
Joachim Westhoff	...	German officer with Claire (uncredited)
Dominique Zardi	...	(uncredited)
Jean-Pierre Zola	...	Cpl. Mayer (uncredited)

Directed by
René Clément

Writing credits
Larry Collins		(book) and
Dominique Lapierre		(book)
Gore Vidal		(screenplay) and
Francis Ford Coppola		(screenplay)
Marcel Moussy		(additional material for French scenes)
Beate von Molo		(additional material for German scenes)
Jean Aurenche
Yves Boisset		uncredited
Pierre Bost
Claude Brulé

Produced by
Paul Graetz	....	producer

Original Music by
Maurice Jarre

Cinematography by
Marcel Grignon

Film Editing by
Robert Lawrence

Production Design by
Willy Holt

Art Direction by
Marc Frédérix
Pierre Guffroy

Costume Design by
Pierre Nourry
Jean Zay

Makeup Department
Aïda Carange	....	makeup artist
Michel Deruelle	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Louis Daquin	....	production manager: second unit
C.O. Erickson	....	executive production manager
Lucien Lippens	....	assistant unit manager
Roger Mercanton	....	associate production manager
Louis Wipf	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Yves Boisset	....	assistant director
André Smagghe	....	second unit director
Michel Wyn	....	assistant director

Art Department
Roger Volper	....	set dresser

Sound Department
Jacques Carrère	....	sound re-recordist
Denise Charvein	....	sound editor
Daniel Couteau	....	sound effects
Johnny Dwyre	....	sound editor
Jean Nény	....	sound re-recordist
Alex Pront	....	sound re-recordist
William Robert Sivel	....	recording director (as William R. Sivel)

Special Effects by
Robert MacDonald	....	special effects
A. Paul Pollard	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
André Domage	....	camera operator
Georges Pastier	....	camera operator
Jean Tournier	....	director of photography: second unit
Pierre Villemain	....	camera operator

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Joan Joseff	....	costume jeweller (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Annie Charvein	....	assistant editor
Catherine Gabrielidis	....	assistant editor
Catherine Gascuel	....	assistant editor
Françoise Merville	....	assistant editor

Music Department
John C. Hammell	....	music editor (as John Hammell)
Maurice Jarre	....	conductor

Other crew
Guy Calvet	....	production consultant
Roger Morand	....	administrator
Yvette Vérité	....	continuity
Georges Aminel	....	voice dubbing: Consul Raoul Nordling (uncredited)
Claude Bertrand	....	voice dubbing: Géneral Dietrich von Choltitz (uncredited)
Robert Dalban	....	voice dubbing: Un officier allemand et un geôlier (uncredited)
Phillip Kenny	....	production assistant (uncredited)
Bernard Musson	....	voice dubbing: Un aide de Von Choltitz (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Marianne Productions
• Transcontinental Films

Distributors

• Les Films Paramount (1966) (France) (theatrical)
• Paramount Pictures (1966) (USA) (theatrical)
• Seven Arts Productions (1966) (UK) (theatrical)
• Paramount-Films (1967) (Finland) (theatrical)
• American Broadcasting Company (ABC) (1968) (USA) (TV) (original airing)
• Paramount Home Entertainment Finland (2006) (Finland) (DVD)
• Paramount Home Video (2003) (USA) (DVD)

Other Companies

• S.I.M.O.  re-recording

Also Known As:

"Paris brûle-t-il?" - France (original title)

Runtime:

France:175 min | USA:173 min | Argentina:174 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | German | English

Color:

Black and White (archive footage) | Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) (Westrex Recording System) | Mono (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Netherlands:12 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris 8, Paris, France

Company:

Marianne Productions

Trivia:

The "German" tanks were American-built M-24 Chaffees with armor plates welded on.

Goofs:

Factual errors: At the end of the movie, the lieutenant Henri Karcher calls his father to tell him he has just captured a general. Actually, his father died in 1914.

Quotes:

Lieutenant Henri Karcher:[over the phone to his father] Hello, Papa? This is Lieutenant Karcher. Your son. In spite of your pessimstic view of my military career, I'd like to announce I've just made some prisoners of the general in command of Paris at the Hotel Maurice. He surrendered to me. But I'm still very bad at drill.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Hogan's Heroes: Is General Hammerschlag Burning? (#3.11)" (1967)

A city on the edge of destruction

If the tagline for It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was 'Everyone whose ever been funny is in it,' then Rene Clement's epic could almost lay claim that 'Anyone who's ever been French is in it,' assembling Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Louis Trintignant and others in a spectacular retelling of the Liberation of Paris. Even that was not enough for Paramount, who wanted another Longest Day and padded out the American roles with largely blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos by Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford and Robert Stack. Of the non-French top-liners, only Orson Welles as the Swedish consul frantically trying to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, and Gert Frobe as the general tasked with defending or destroying the city, play a major role in the film. Their scenes easily the best in the somewhat disjointed picture, never lapsing into simple stereotyping and giving a credible face to history.

Most of the heavyweight French cast are not much more than cameos either, with the bulk of the film falling on lesser-billed Bruno Cremer and Peter Vaneck's shoulders, although both characters highlight the fact that somewhere along the way the film got somewhat depoliticised from Collins and Lapierre's superb book – both Colonel Rol-Tanguy and Major Gallois/Cocteau were key figures in the communist resistance, though you'd never know it from the film. Although the De Gaullist figures often identified as such, the left don't fare so well: ironic considering one of the strengths of the book was in showing the political infighting and jockeying for position between the De Gaullists and the communist resistance. Collaboration barely gets a mention either: this is predominantly triumphalist in tone, and as such its often very effective, with several sections carrying a real surge of jubilation as the people take their city back.

Despite the political dilution that one suspects was a consequence of getting both the essential co-operation from de Gaulle's government and the equally essential dollars from Paramount, it does a good job of making the constantly shifting strategies and increasingly chaotic events accessible while keeping the momentum up, but as with most spot-the-star WW2 epics, it's the vignettes that stick most firmly in the mind: a German soldier, his uniform still smouldering, staggering away from a blown-up truck only to be ignored by a businessman blithely going to work as if nothing were happening; a female resistance worker delivering instructions for the uprising being offered a lift by an unsuspecting German officer after her bike gets a puncture; French soldiers picking off Germans from an apartment while the little old lady who lives there excitedly watches as she drinks her tea; Jean-Paul Belmondo and Marie Versini crawling across a road with their bikes to avoid snipers while a gay man walking his dog watches, before going on to liberate the seat of government without a shot being fired because the civil servants there habitually do what they're told by anyone in authority; an armoured unit getting a dozen different directions to their destination by Parisians; SS men casually looking through Von Choltitz's papers out of force of habit; and the general suddenly finding himself alone in a restaurant as the bells of Paris ring out for the first time in four years to proclaim the Allies' arrival.

The Americans don't fare as well, all-too obviously being there simply for marquee value (prominently billed George Chakhiris is in it for less than 30 seconds!), although Anthony Perkins' soldier acting more like a tourist is at least memorable. In many ways the two real stars of the film are the city of Paris and Maurice Jarre's excellent score, the film's only real constant factors as the stars come and go and events move forward. For the most part the film avoids the tourist shots with a great use of locations, giving a sense of a place where people actually live and die, while Jarre's score manages to counterpoint a militant piano-led theme for the Nazi Occupation with an increasingly stirring resistance theme that constantly runs underneath it, gradually working its way out of hiding and constantly gaining ascendancy before finally flowering into a vivid and triumphant waltz for the Liberation.

A somewhat ill-fated production - producer Paul Graetz died of a heart attack during filming – it was a huge but much-criticised success in France but a conspicuous box-office failure everywhere else, with Paramount swearing off the epic genre for decades to come and Rene Clement's career never really recovering: his last major film, he wouldn't work again for another three years and only made four more films. Best remembered today for Plein Soleil/Purple Noon, La Bataille du Rail and the Oscar-winning Jeux Interdit/Forbidden Games, and his direction is for the most part superb, be it the control of a chillingly formal tracking shot along a railway platform casually revealing and passing a dead body or the edgy hand-held work during some of the makeshift street fights. Although the decision to film in black and white which would hurt the film so much at the box-office and on television was reputedly forced on the film by the French government's refusal to allow the film to fly red and black Nazi flags over the city (grey and black, however, were permitted), it works to the film's advantage, not only allowing it to incorporate genuine archive footage a little more skilfully than is the norm but also gives it a more verite feel thanks to Marcel Grignon's naturalistic photography.

If at times this feels less like the classic it could have been and more like the best film that could be made under the political and financial circumstances, it's still an impressive and occasionally compelling recreation of a unique moment in history that deserves to be at least a little better known and better regarded than it is.