ELÉNA AND HER MEN Movie Review

Paris Does Strange Things
Eléna et les Hommes

This lushly designed comedy of manners, set in Paris in the 1880s, tells of the Polish Princess Eléna (Ingrid Bergman) who decides to abandon her true love, Henri de Chevincourt (Mel Ferrer), so that she can instead attain political power by way of a liaison with the Minister of War, General Rollan (Jean Marais).Originally, Renoir wanted this to be a serious portrait of the real General Boulanger's reach for dictatorial power in the same period, but the involvement of Bergman led him to take what he described as “a more lighthearted approach.” The last in a trilogy of lush period films that Renoir directed in the 1950s—the earlier films being The Golden Coach and French Can-Can—Eléna et les Hommes was cut and dubbed in its original 1956 American release, and released under the title Paris Does Strange Things. (So do film distributors.) A few years ago, new, fully restored color prints were made available of Eléna, but, alas, this was one restoration that did not reveal an undiscovered masterpiece. Curiously distant, the restored Eléna is no Lola Montès; it's not even French Can-Can. It is a Renoir film, however, and therefore not without its glories. Chief among the glories in Eléna et les Hommes is one of the greatest glories in all of cinema—the staggering, heartbreaking beauty of Ingrid Bergman. No film that features such a sight could ever be dismissed as a failure.

NEXT STOP … La Chienne, Rules of the Game, The Golden Coach

1956 98m/C FR Ingrid Bergman, Jean Marais, Mel Ferrer, Jean Richard, Magali Noel, Pierre Bertin, Juliette Greco; D: Jean Renoir; C: Claude Renoir. VHS, LV INT, FCT, TPV