South of France Triple Bill: Bonjour Tristesse (1958 Otto Preminger) / Two For the Road (1967 Stanley Donen) / To Catch a Thief (1954 Alfred Hitchcock)

Francoise Sagan was only 18 when 'Bonjour Tristesse' was first published in 1954. It's a short novel (132 pages in original English translation). The adaptation was by Arthur Laurents. 

Saul Bass credits. CinemaScope. On location Paris / Côte D'Azure. Seberg's short hair (just before A Bout de Souffle). David Niven (and Roland Culver, briefly). Georges Périnal reunited with Georges Auric 27 years after Cocteau's Sang d'un Poete. Auric writes like a mischievous elf - like Seberg. Deborah Kerr. Maids who are all interchangeable sisters. Colour coded costumes. Amazing hats. Mylène Demongeot (23). A trick cyclist.

I would say that Niven and Seberg's relationship is just a bit too close for good.

The haunting theme song is sung by Juliette Greco, lyrics Arthur Laurents and music by Georges Auric. Classy Saul Bass credits too.

Mylène Demongeot is the 'brilliant' young girlfriend of David Niven, Geoffrey Horne the studious boy across the bay.

In a very international production, it's interesting to see that Brit Denys Coop is Georges Perinal's operator.

It was apparently filmed at La Fossette, the villa owned at the time by the founder of newspaper France-Soir, Pierre Lazareff. You can hire the villa - it's only £31,927 a week!

Note sneaky drinking maid:

We decided to stay in France with Two For the Road, a most brilliantly presented study of marriage in jumbled up time - all the work of screenwriter Frederic Raphael. Chris Challis had adventures with the car in making the photography as real as possible. Henry Mancini underscores the bittersweet series of events perfectly.

Some of the fashions are hilarious.

Partly based on the real travels of Raphael and his wife Sylvia along Route Nationale 6, or as far as Rome, where this was written. He took all the plot elements and wrote them on the back of cards, shuffled them, then wrote the film in the random order of the cards. (But it can't have been just that simple - some of the match cuts are so well worked out.) This even includes the trick of seeing the different time periods overlap within the same scene, viz. where the newer versions of themselves pass the old ones by on the road. It's very clever, and manages an insightful, trenchant look at a relationship along the way.

Also very funny, not just in Hepburn's ghastly wardrobe, but in lines like "The girls were absolutely potty about you and so - heaven knows - were you" and the shot of lobsters followed by the sunburned couple.

They were certainly happier in the old days.

Claude Dauphin is the client and Nadia Gray his wife, William Daniels and Elenor Bron the offensive Manchesters ("Howie, you're the biggest untapped pocket of natural gas known to man"), Georges Descrières the smooth lover and it's not in fact Jacqueline Bisset's debut (she had already been in The Knack, Casino Royale, Drop Dead Darling  and Cul-de-Sac).

Far too easily dismissed as a star vehicle travelogue romcom, film fully embraces the nouvelle vague and is dazzling, sardonic, tender, loudly funny and unbeatable. Donen approached Raphael on the back of Nothing But the Best. It lost money.

First saw it on TV on 25 July 1977 and grew increasingly to love it over many viewings, including a memorable cinema screening in Paris on 24 October, 1992.

The line that we keep misquoting is in fact "No Ruthie, I didn't. I did not. No. No, I didn't. No."

A jewel of a screenplay, nominated for both BAFTA and Oscar (A Man For All Seasons and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner won) - Fred's 95, birthday on August 14, and was married to Sylvia since 1955 (she dies a coup,e of years ago. By a remarkable coincidence I wrote to William Boyd the next day who said he'd had 'lunch today with Freddie Raphael and his son Stephen. Fred is amazing – a little lame but all mental marbles intact. Sadly his wife Beetle died a couple of years ago – she was actually two years older than Fred. We first met them in 1976 – so, our lunch today was a kind of 50th anniversary.' You hope they got on better than Mark (Albert Finney) who's very selfish and chauvinistic and Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) who's materialistic - a nicely shaded couple of characters, in fact. Plus the marvellously shallow Manchesters (Eleanor Bron and William Daniels). Apparently Finney and Hepburn had a close and happy relationship during the filming and maybe even were lovers.

Finally tracked down Audrey's poem as the reasonably obscure  'The Bumble Bee' by Laura Elizabeth Richards - the line 'He never got home for early tea' is used quite effectively also in relation to her affair with George Descrières - and the hotel was the Domain St Just, which is now the Chateau St Just and looks like some kind of meetings venue (unfortunately)...

This was Donen's own Mercedes

"We've invested $60 in anti-snake equipment."
"Well let's hope someone gets bitten by a snake."

It's marvellously put together too though by Donen and editors Madelèine Gug and Richard Marden.

Maurice's place sure looks like the same villa in La Piscine which was at L'Oumède, Var, St Tropez. According to Wikipedia, it was!

Finally, to wrap up our sojourn in the south of France, it had to be To Catch A Thief, which is just such a well made film.

Begins as a model of silent story-telling, and concludes with the greenest nights on film. In fact those roof sets and the green on Blu-Ray makes it quite trippy.

Grant is at his most lithe and Bond-y, but you have to relish all the performances, especially that of Jessie Royce Landis. With Grace Kelly, John Williams (who I'd watch in anything), Charles Vanel. Brigitte Auber.

Keeps getting better the more you look at it (and colourful south of France locations look brilliant on Blu-Ray). For example, near the beginning is a most interesting car chase shot mainly from a helicopter. The reason for this is that we don't know that Cary Grant's car is being driven by his housekeeper, but Hitch doesn't want us to know that until the moment of pay-off.

More evidence that the James Bond series came from Hitchcock: another fast car driven by woman sequence (it comes from Notorious and ends up in Thunderball) and all the stuff about speedboats and the beach could also be in Thunderball; plus the very way Grant moves and looks is like a Connery blueprint.

The famous shot of Jessie Royce Landis stubbing out her cigarette in an egg is a sign of the director's disgust of this particular food item (interesting then that insurance agent John Williams is treated to a delicious Quiche Lorraine ("Ah yes, I've heard of these")).

Another entertaining collaboration with John Michael Hayes, with some of A team in evidence - Burks, Tomasini - but the music here is by Lyn Murray (real name Lionel Breeze!) and interestingly sounds in arrangement like Herrmann (bassoons, oboes) though the latter's collaboration with Hitch didn't begin until the same year's Trouble with Harry.

One of the most amusing directors' appearances with Grant looking directly at Hitchcock (a moment that used to be lost altogether on cropped TV prints).

Grace Kelly  did not die on the mountain roads because of her lack of ability behind the wheel but because she suffered a stroke which caused her to lose control. She was Princess Grace for 26 years, at least. I love the shot in the fireworks sequence, when her face is in shadow but her diamond necklace is lit. And the moment where Grant - who's so suntanned he's almost turned black by this point - tosses his chicken into the picnic basket and he pulls Kelly down to kiss her and her head's in the basket, lying, presumably, on top of the chicken.

John Michael Hayes' script is actually quite risqué. It's a fabulous entertainment, looks great and Hitch is thoroughly in command. You can say what you like about Tomasini's editing, but all Hitch's films are brilliantly edited and the array of interesting shots and set ups is all part of the Master's Art. People don't make films like this any more.

Lots of sound dubbing evident - people saying lines of dialogue when their mouths aren't moving.

Alma came up with the car chase shot by helicopter sequence. They both loved the riviera. She could remember the turns of the road to map it out so accurately.

Q loves this dress

There are many reports from on set that Hitch was barely paying attention during the shooting of several scenes - it was all in his head already. Though if you look at the note he's written to the second unit, published by Truffaut, you can see he's very much focusing on details.

To dismiss it as lightly entertaining fluff would ignore the great skill that has gone into it - there's for example all those great changes of shot set up in even the simplest scenes.