"Eyes Without a Face"/"The Young Girls of Rochefort"

Awright, another two-fer. Mainly because I hadn't gotten a chance to write about the first one yet.

"Eyes Without a Face" is a French horror (sort of) film, directed by Georges Franju and released in 1960. Although its original title may be most familiar as the namesake of a Billy Idol song, it's actually quite a nice twist on the Frankenstein tale, with a forward-thinking surgeon wanting to repair (by replacing) his daughter's face after a car accident claimed a large part of it. The accident was his fault, too. He has an assistant (played by Alida Valli) who had her face fixed by the surgeon earlier and has only a small scar on her neck to show for it. The assistant helps him procure potential ladies with nice faces, and in the first scene, she is disposing of an unfortunate procuree.

This is the second time I've seen the film, and this time a lot of the music really stood out....particularly the comical "shopping music" that plays whenever Valli's character is lookin' for dames. This is still the only film I've seen directed by Franju; "Judex" is on my list for some future time. "Eyes" is worth a watch. Do it sometime.

I need to mention something else. Earlier, I wrote about the film's "original title," which is "Eyes..." After its initial release, an American distributor released an English-dubbed version called.....wait for it....."The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus." And it was stuck on a double bill with "The Manster." Yep, see for yourself.

And on we go to the fourth of the Jacques Demy Criterion Collection box...."The Young Girls of Rochefort." And man oh man, the winners keep coming. Four for four from this box. And this movie is pretty much a straight-ahead musical. Hell, Gene Kelly is even in it. Lotsa singing, lotsa dancing. But I gotta tell you, after watching this, I might become a fan of musicals. This one's riveting from start to finish. And this film is a full 35 minutes longer than the longest of Demy's I'd watched this far. It tops two hours. The music (again from Michel Legrand) is fantastic....I'm about to search it on Amazon and probably buy it.

Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister, Françoise Dorleac star as a pair of non-identical twin sisters lookin' for that special man. And most of the other major players are all lookin' for that special person, too. Most of the end you can predict, but it's one swell multi-colored, swingin' ride getting there. And Gene Kelly speaks French. Pretty well, too.

I'm still just floored by the four Demy films I've watched so far. The final two in the box are not as well-liked as these four.....I'll get to 'em soon and see for myself.

Whew.