Les Parents Terribles [The Storm Within] ***** (1948, Jean Marais Josette Day Yvonne de Bray) – Classic Movie Review 5831

Writer-director Jean Cocteau’s spirited, theatrical, steamy 1948 French film of his own 1938 stage play about a Paris family driven crazy by the overpowering love of the mother Yvonne aka ‘Sophie’ (Yvonne de Bray) for her 22-year-old son Michel (Jean Marais), who declares his love for Madeleine (Josette Day) to his parents, is one of the best French films of the late Forties.

It is driven along intensely by the nothing less than perfect acting from these three stars, plus Gabrielle Dorziat as Michel’s maiden auntie, Léo, originally engaged to Georges but left him to her sister. Léo decides to separate Michel and Madeleine…

Also in the cast is Marcel André as Michel’s father Georges, upset because his son has announced that he loves Madeleine, who is his own mistress.

Marais’s passionate playing easily makes up for him being a bit old (at 35) and over-strong-seeming for the sensitive, tormented role he is playing. Besides, Cocteau is probably revealing what he saw in his lover Marais when he first met him at the age of 24, and the two easily persuade us into that mind-set.

The film is narrated by Cocteau, who here is using the same actors who appeared in a hit Paris stage revival of his play in 1946. Cocteau wanted to film his play ‘to record the performances of incomparable actors, mingle with them myself, and look them full in the face instead of seeing them at a distance on the stage. I wanted to put my eye to the keyhole and surprise them with a telescopic lens.’

Cocteau keeps his film faithful to the writing of the play, substantially pruning the text, and does not open it out from its original settings, keeping the drama claustrophobic and concentrated. He viewed it as his best film, at least from a technical point of view.

It is shot in black and white by Michel Kelber, produced by Francis Cosne and Alexandre Mnouchkine, distributed by Les Films Ariane, scored by Georges Auric and designed by Guy de Gastyne.

It was remade in Britain in 1953 as Intimate Relations.

Jean Marais died on November 8, 1998, aged 84.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5831

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