Quadrille (1938)

Quadrille: Directed by Sacha Guitry. With Sacha Guitry, Gaby Morlay, Jacqueline Delubac, Georges Grey. The battle of the sexes as drawing room social satire. Philippe, a middle-aged newspaper editor, has lived for six years with Paulette, a successful stage actress. He tells her friend Claudine, a realistic and enterprising reporter, that he’s thinking of proposing. Into the mix steps Carl Erickson, a charming Hollywood matinée idol in Paris briefly. He meets Paulette, sees her act (his box seat compliments of Philippe), and sets out to seduce her. The next two days bring talk, tears, separation, despair, surprises, and, perhaps, reconciliation as characters speak “exactly half the truth.” It’s a quadrille of changing partners.

“Guitryu0026#39;s films are often relegated to the category of u0026quot;filmed theater.u0026quot; While this is an inaccurate categorization of his films as a whole, it does apply to this very talky picture. Not only is it based on a play, it is also very clumsily u0026quot;opened upu0026quot; with cutaway u0026quot;meanwhileu0026quot; inserts, brief exterior shots showing characters entering buildings, etc., which break up the theatrical continuity and add little, if anything. A rather long 91 minutes (the running time of the Gaumont DVD in the u0026quot;Guitry Coffret du0026#39;oru0026quot; boxed set — though two Guitry books and IMDb list it as 109), despite the exceptionally appealing presence of young star Georges Gray — a very handsome man, who is seen in a (non full-frontal) nude scene. Heu0026#39;s very chipper and genial (if not exactly funny — he doesnu0026#39;t really have any good lines). Guitry gives a typical Guitry performance. He himself said he was no actor, and, indeed, Guitry is always Guitry (as John Wayne is always John Wayne). Sometimes thatu0026#39;s fine — when he plays historical characters it seems to work well — but here one could use something more. The women are all fine, the decors and costumes are lovely. And itu0026#39;s a bit of a bore.”