Devil in the Flesh

Black and white, 35 mm
France, 1946, 110 min
Section: Special Events

Director:	Claude Autant-Lara
Screenplay:	Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost podle stejnojmenného románu Raymonda Radigueta / based on the novel of the same name by Raymond Radiquet
Dir. of Photography:	Michel Kelber
Music:	René Cloërec
Editor:	Madeleine Gug
Producer:	Paul Graetz
Contact:	Národní filmový archiv Praha
Cast:	Micheline Presle, Gérard Philipe, Denise Grey

Synopsis

Raymon Radiguet (1903–1923) wrote the novel Devil in the Flesh when he was 17 and died in the year the novel was published. Both the novel and the film of 1947 created a massive wave of revulsion against the vilification of war, which is in the story interpreted as a factor facilitating the amorous idyll of the main characters. The story of love between a woman whose fiancéé and later husband fights on the front line and a student, protected from being send to war by his young age, was interpreted by some as a celebration of adultery, resulting in a section of the journalist community writing a protest petition requiring the novel to be withdrawn from the market. When the film was shown in Brussels, the French ambassador demonstratively left the room. The supporters of the successful adaptation on the other hand pointed out that the film expressed the feelings of the generation growing up during the Second World War and, not surprisingly, Gerard Philip, playing Francois, the student, won the Best Actor Award in Cannes in 1947.

In the film directed by Claude Autant-Lary, the character of Marta, who blithely but sincerely falls in love with the young boy, so different from her spouse, was enacted by the then rising star of French cinematography Micheline Presle with such forcibility that she was invited to Hollywood almost immediately after. However, she got her best roles in France where she still acts today.

 

About the director

Claude Autant-Lara, born on 5.8.1901 in Luzarches – died on 5.2.2000 in Antibes, a son of an architect and an actress of Comédie Francaise, started his film career as a designer. He worked together with Marcel l’Herbier and Jean Renoir, in 1926 he became an assistant of René Clair. He started to make short films in the 1920s, his first feature film Ciboulette (1933, based on the popular light opera, was not particularly successful. He reached his first success with Le Mariage de Chiffon (Marriage of Love, 1941) with Odette Joyeux, who then played also in Lettres d’amour (Love Letters, 1941) and Douce (Tender, 1942), the first of his films in which he used his black humour. After the success of his film Sylvie et le fantome (Sylvie and the Phantom, 1945) again with Odette Joyeux, he made the film adaptation of Raymond Radiguet´s novel Le diable au corps (Devil in Flesh, 1947). Key films, mostly featuring popular actors: Occupe-toi d’Amélie (Take Care of Amelie, 1949), L’Auberge rouge (Red Inn, 1951), La Rouge et le Noir (Red and Black, 1954), La Traversée de Paris (Across Paris, 1956), En cas de malheur (In Case of Misfortune, 1958), La Jument Verte (Green Mare, 1959). Later in life he entered politics as a Deputy of the rightwing National Front.