Friends *** (1971, Sean Bury, Anicée Alvina, Toby Robins, Ronald Lewis) – Classic Movie Review 4484

Director Lewis Gilbert’s 1971 teen romance Friends about two love-struck youngsters escaping to a secluded hideaway home to have a baby is a tasteful and pleasant film if perhaps sometimes rather vapid and dreary. Sean Bury (aged 16) stars as the ignored 15-year-old rich English boy Paul who whizzes orphaned 14½-year-old French girl Michelle (Anicée Alvina, aged 18) off to the seaside.

Innocent, Blue Lagoon-style first love helps to take the sting away from the controversial underage romance, though the film’s notoriety helped it at the box office to overcome its poor reviews. The pretty French photography in Technicolor, the location shooting in Camargue, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, and the song score by Elton John (music) and Bernie Taupin (lyrics) also helped to nudge it ahead to be a hit at the box office – as well as in the direction of the 1974 sequel Paul and Michelle.

Songs: Friends. Michelle’s Song, Seasons, A Day in the Country, Can I Put You On, Honey Roll, I Meant to Do My Work Today. They are all written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and performed by Elton John.

Also in the cast are Toby Robins, Ronald Lewis, Pascale Roberts, Sady Rebbot and Joan Hickson.

Friends runs 101 minutes, is written by Vernon Harris and Jack Russell, is shot in Technicolor by Andréas Winding, is made by Lewis Gilbert Productions, is released by Paramount Pictures (1971), is produced by Lewis Gilbert, is scored by Paul Buckmaster and is designed by Marc Frédérix.

Apparently, the film is on Roger Ebert’s Most Hated list.

Sean Bury (born on August 15, 1954 in Brighton) became a teacher of children with special needs. His last film was The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Anicée Alvina died of lung cancer in 2006, aged 53. Ronald Lewis was declared bankrupt at the start of the Eighties and committed suicide by barbiturate overdose on 11 January 1982 in Pimlico, London, aged 53. He was known as aggressive and unstable, with a history of violence towards women and gays.

Lewis Gilbert, director of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), You Only Live Twice (1967) and Moonraker (1979), was 96 on 6 March 1920. He died on 23 February 2018, age 97, in Monaco. He notably also directed Reach for the Sky (1956), Sink the Bismarck! (1960), Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989).

Sean Bury, Anicée Alvina, Toby Robins and Ronald Lewis return for the 1974 sequel Paul and Michelle.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4484

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