French Postcards

19791979
PGPG
1h 35m

The believable, fresh-faced characters are young naives from American colleges spending their French-English dictionaries, they compulsively seek out hundreds of monuments, romanticize the n... Read allThe believable, fresh-faced characters are young naives from American colleges spending their French-English dictionaries, they compulsively seek out hundreds of monuments, romanticize the nomadic artist's life, and look for grown-up love.The believable, fresh-faced characters are young naives from American colleges spending their French-English dictionaries, they compulsively seek out hundreds of monuments, romanticize the nomadic artist's life, and look for grown-up love.

5.9/10

719

Top credits

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Videos1

Video 27:32

Sneak Previews Season 2 Episode 12

Miles Chapin and Valérie Quennessen in French Postcards (1979)

David Marshall Grant and Marie-France Pisier in French Postcards (1979)

Debra Winger, Blanche Baker, and David Marshall Grant in French Postcards (1979)

An American group of exchange students come to Paris to study the language and culture for a year. The film depicts the various interactions between the students and the instructors, including the pretty female director of the institute where they are enrolled. —Ari Herzog <ari@ici.net>

studying abroad american in france bare chested male implied sex interrupted sex scene 24 more

Taglines
- American students go to Paris ... The less they study the more they learn.
Genres
- Comedy
- Drama
Certificate
- PG
Parents guide

Quotes
Madame Catherine Tessier: Do you like the house? We decorated these rooms in what we call the Eisenhower 50's style. It's very hard to find good American furniture from that period in Paris.

Alternate versions
Due to music licensing disputes, the 1986 Paramount home video edition of this film contains almost completely different French-language pop songs as compared to the theatrical and cable television editions. Similarly, in 1984 NBC-TV ran a version that featured previously discarded footage of Debra Winger, who by then had become a major star.

Connections
Featured in Sneak Previews: French Postcards/The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh/The Marriage of Maria Braun/The Rose/Best Boy (1979)

Top review

8/10

Gentle, Sweet Coming of Age Film for the Romantic

This film is a must see for anyone who has ever been an American exchange student abroad. It perfectly captures the mixture of foreignness and familiar that is part and parcel of the exchange experience. The different types of approaches that one might have to an exchange year abroad are well illustrated.

It is, by no means, a great film, but it continues to endure in my memory as a good representation of what my year in Brazil, broadly speaking, was like. Lots of attractive actors, beautiful scenes and a surprising amount of humorous and witty dialog.

I have this on videotape, but the soundtrack has been changed from the original release and the subsequent showings on HBO. The most noticeable change is the opening scene on the bus. Madame Tessier is welcoming the new exchange students to France and tells them they need to immerse themselves in French culture and leave America behind. The bus driver, irritated with her prattling, pops in a tape of a band doing a French version of Do You Believe In Magic (The Lovin' Spoonful). It totally captures how American culture has infiltrated the world's cultures. In the videotape release they replace this song with some generic pop music. They must not have been willing to pay for the musical rights to the song. It's not quite as effective, but it is still a great start to a fun, romantic movie about coming of age in a foreign land.

This truly is a delightful, lite film that will give you a 95 minute taste of living abroad. Rent it if you can and hope that it shows up on DVD sometime soon.

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