(1958, b/w; Les Amants, French) Fifty years ago this dramatic love story, directed by Louis Malle, created a sensational scandal in the US.

In Paris on twice monthly trips with Maggie, her best friend from childhood, Jeanne Tournier (Jeanne Moreau), learns the sophisticated, stylish ways of the city, including taking a lover. Married for eight years to Henri (Alain Cluny), the wealthy publisher of a newspaper in Dijon, Jeanne, provincial by birth and education, becomes romantically attached to Raoul Flores (José Luis de Villalonga), a dashing Spanish polo player, leading a double life.

When her husband takes little notice of her - she says she needs a new "look," but since she's married he asks, "For whom?" to which she replies, "for fashion, for myself" - she makes more frequent visits, staying longer with Maggy and Raoul. Eventually exasperated with his wife's repeated absences, Henri forbids her going to Paris again ("Excuses cover up lies"), insisting that she invite her two friends for a dinner engagement in their home.

On the return drive from letting Maggy know of Henri's request, her Peugeot breaks down on an infrequently traveled road. A man agrees to give her a lift to Dijon, but first - on the road they are passed by Maggy and Raoul who don't recognize her - he says he must stop at the home of his old friend, a professor, in Montbard, where Jeanne waits impatiently in the car for 45 minutes. Annoyed with Bernard Dubois-Lambert (Jean-Marc Bory), a young archaeologist, since she will be late for greeting her friends and introducing Raoul to Henri, he nevertheless makes her laugh with his depiction of her husband as a big brown bear.

Appreciative of Bernard's bringing Jeanne home, Henri invites the archaeologist to stay for dinner and the night. Throughout the evening, Henri plays the gracious, jovial host, while Jeanne behaves but sulks. Everyone except Bernard, who is given leave to make himself at home, goes upstairs to their separate bedrooms in order to get up at four the next morning for the day's outing.

Hearing music from the phonograph (the soundtrack is from Brahms), Jeanne goes downstairs in her nightgown and then outside, where she encounters Bernard. Irritated at first with his persistent presence ("Don't talk as if you'd invented the moon"), transformative love is gained in a glance, after which she feels no hesitance to be with him in a landscape invented for her to lose herself within.

He frees fish from a trap; they lie together inside a rowboat floating on a stream. Impulsively they decide to depart together, but first go up to her room where she wants to change clothes; instead, they disrobe and go to bed. Barely a breast gets exposed, but the expression of ecstasy on her face ("I'm so happy!") and their hands intensely clenched communicate the fulfillment of their embrace.

Leaving behind her young daughter, Jeanne and Bernard motor off on a long journey of uncertainty to recapture their night of enchantment.

In 1959 movie-theater owners in Chicago, Portland, and Cleveland were accused of violating public decency by showing this film. The owner of the Heights Art Theatre, Nico Jacobelli in Cleveland Heights, was arrested on charges of obscenity; the Ohio Supreme Court upheld his conviction. Eventually getting his case heard before the US Supreme Court on June 22nd, 1964, Jacobelli in having the earlier verdicts reversed heard the now famous words of Justice Stewart Potter, admitting though he might not be able to clearly or fully define what constituted hard-core pornography, "But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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