Stolen Kisses [Baisers Volés] **** (1968, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claude Jade, Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale) – Classic Movie Review 2587

Co-writer/director François Truffaut’s 1968 Baisers Volés (Stolen Kisses) is the very welcome third episode in Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series.

The 25-year-old Jean-Pierre Léaud back again as Truffaut’s alter ego in the further adventures of the nice young Frenchman Antoine Doinel, who is discharged from military service in the French army and has a series of jobs back in Paris as a night watchman and a private investigator, before trying his luck as a salesman at the shoe shop of M Georges Tabard (Michel Lonsdale).

In this charming romantic comedy, Doinel has a reunion with Christine Darbon (Claude Jade), who rejects him, but then he is soon in love with Mme Fabienne Tabard, M Tabard’s fascinating wife (Delphine Seyrig).

It is revealing that, though filming at a crucial time in history, Truffaut ignores the student riots of 1968 in preference for a nostalgic 1930s-style comedy.

Also in the cast are Harry-Max, Daniel Ceccaldi, André Falcon, Claire Duhamel, Catherine Lutz, Martine Ferrière and Jacques Rispal.

Léaud’s Antoine Doinel character first appeared in Les Quatre Cents Coups {The 400 Blows) in 1959. He reappeared in a segment of Love at Twenty (1962). Next episode in Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series: Domicile Conjugale.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2587

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