Jeux interdits [Forbidden Games] **** (1952, Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Amédée) – Classic Movie Review 2356

Director René Clément’s heart-tugging war drama is the (honorary) 1953 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film first released in the United States during 1952. Jeux interdits [Forbidden Games] focuses on the terrible fallout effects of war and how the collateral damage affects the lives of children.

It concerns an orphaned little city girl (Brigitte Fossey) who is taken in for a few weeks by a poor farmer country family after her parents have been murdered by the Germans in a Nazi air attack during World War Two.

The girl’s parents were trying to flee with her from the city to safety. Little Paulette is befriended by the peasant family’s slightly older little boy Michel Dolle (Georges Poujouly) after she wanders away from the other refugees.

Michel becomes fast friends with the five-year-old girl and assists her in giving her puppy a decent burial with crosses stolen from the cemetery –  the Forbidden Games or The Secret Game of the alternative American titles. The boy and girl try to come to terms with the realities of death.

Clément, the director of Plein Soleil, delivers a lovely film with very touching story based on a novel by François Boyer, which he tells with the greatest of skill and heart-felt sentiment. At the heart of it, there are quite remarkable, totally unselfconscious performances from the young children.

It won the Golden Lion for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival in 1952 and François Boyer was Oscar nominated in 1953 for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story. The New York Film Critics Circle voted it Best Foreign Language Film in 1952 and it won the 1954 BAFTA Award for Best Film from any Source.

It runs 102 minutes but the US cut version is only 88 minutes.

Georges Poujouly (1940-2000) was also known for playing Soudieu, one of the pupils, in Les Diaboliques (1955) and for Lift to the Scaffold [Elevator to the Gallows] (1958).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2356

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com