Les Grandes Manoeuvres [Summer Manoeuvres] **** (1955, Michèle Morgan, Gérard Philipe, Jean Desailly, Yves Robert, Brigitte Bardot) – Classic Movie Review 10,207

Director René Clair’s enchanting, exquisitely handled pre-World War One romantic comedy-drama Les Grandes Manoeuvres [Summer Manoeuvres] (1955), haunted with tragic emotions, is set in a French provincial garrison town.

There Le lieutenant Armand de la Verne (Gérard Philipe) is a dashing French army dragoon lieutenant who bets that he can seduce any woman before his regiment leaves town for manoeuvres in two weeks, including seducing the ravishingly beautiful Parisian divorcée Marie-Louise Rivière (Michèle Morgan). She falls for him, he really loves her, but then she discovers his secret of the bet.

Les Grandes Manoeuvres is old-fashioned maybe, but it is a treat. The beautiful great continental stars are infectiously charming, the story is affecting, the waltz theme is lovely and Clair directs with great feeling for the characters and period, creating a vivid portrait of French provincial life before 1914. It is Clair’s first film made in colour, ‘to enable him to keep reality at a distance’, the images exquisitely shot by Robert Lefebvre. Production designer Léon Barsacq created sets with muted colours, and costumes are mainly in beige or brown, apart from the red of the military uniforms.

Les Grandes Manoeuvres is the winner of the Prix Louis Delluc, 1955, and the Prix Méliès.

Also in the cast are Yves Robert, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Desailly, Pierre Dux, Magali Noël, Jacques Fabbri, Jacques François, Lise Delamare, Jacqueline Maillan, Dany Carrel, Simone Valère, Claude Rich, Judith Magre, Raymond Cordy, Daniel Ceccaldi, and Michel Piccoli.

It is shot in Eastmancolor at the Studios de Boulogne-Billancourt/SFP, 2 Rue de Silly, Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

It was released in the UK and Ireland as Summer Manoeuvres, and in the US as The Grand Maneuver.

Michèle Morgan (29 February 1920 – 20 December 2016) was born Simone Renée Roussel.

Clair recalled: ‘Love is the only concern of Les Grandes Manœuvres. Having passed a part of my childhood near Versailles, I could not forget the cavalry officers, their galloping in the forest of Viroflay, the rumours of their adventures, a duel which the newspapers talked about and in which two of those officers died. For me it is a very sentimental film, even more sentimental because it is situated in the period of my childhood. I put into it things that I saw.’

Clair filmed two different endings and showed them to friends for their reaction. Clair chose the more delicate and low-key one.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,207

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