Édouard et Caroline [Edward and Caroline] **** (1951, Daniel Gélin, Anne Vernon, Elina Labourdette, Jean Galland, Jacques François) – Classic Movie Review 8672

Director Jacques Becker’s witty 1951 black and white French comedy Edouard et Caroline [Edward and Caroline] stars Daniel Gélin and Anne Vernon as pianist Edouard and his wife Caroline, who fight as he gets ready for a Paris party piano recital to start his career by impressing some important people.

They are invited by Claude (Jean Galland), Caroline’s snobbish uncle. His equally snobbish son Alain (Jacques François) as as his father) is in love with Caroline. They disrespect Edouard because he is poor.

At the party, Edouard must play the piano to make himself known by Claude’s important acquaintances.

After the couple quarrel over clothes, Edouard goes to Claude’s alone.

Despite a fairly long cast list, this pleasing airy French comedy is basically a duet. The two appealing stars perform brightly in a vivacious film with bubbly handling by Becker, in a career highspot, one of several in his 14 film career.

French film-maker Bertrand Tavernier said Becker’s films had ‘an enormous range, and always with the same deeply organic quality’.

Also in the cast are Jacques François, William Tubbs, Jean Galland, Elina Labourdette, Betty Stockfeld, Jean Toulout, Jean Marsac, Grégoire Gromoff, Jean Riveyre, Yette Lucas, Hélène Duc, Micheline Rolla and Edmond Ardisson.

Edouard et Caroline [Edward and Caroline] is directed by Jacques Becker, runs 99 minutes, is made by Union Générale Cinématographique (UGC) and Compagnie Industrielle et Commerciale Cinématographique (CICC), is released by L’Alliance Générale de Distribution Cinématographique (1951) (France) and Commercial Pictures (1952) (US), is written by Annette Wademant (scenario and dialogue) and Jacques Becker (scenario), shot by Robert Lefebvre, produced by Raymond Borderie and André Halley des Fontaines, scored by Jean-Jacques Grünenwald and designed by Jacques Colombier.

It is shot at Paris-Studios-Cinéma, Quai du Point du Jour, Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

Gélin’s piano playing is dubbed by renowned pianist Samson François.

Becker died on 21 February 1960, aged 53, just two weeks after finishing Le Trou.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8672

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