A CERTAIN SMILE
US, 1958, 104 minutes, Colour.
Rossano Brazzi, Joan Fontaine, Bradford Dillman, Christine Carere, Eduard Franz, Steven Geray.
Directed by Jean Negulesco.
A Certain Smile was written by the husband and wife team of Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett. They had a long and prolific career with such films as Father of the Bride, Father’s Little Dividend, Easter Parade. However, they won Tony awards for The Diary of Anne Frank which was then made into a film in 1959.
A Certain Smile is something of soap opera, the popular kind of romance that director Jean Negulesco was directing at this time. He had been directing rather tough melodramas in the 1940s at Warner Bros including Three Strangers, Humoresque, Johnny Belinda. After he moved to 20th Century-Fox? in the 1950s with Three Came Home and The Mudlark as well as a version of Titanic, he moved into the Cinemascope era with such pleasing films as How to Marry a Millionaire, Three Coins in the Fountain, Woman’s World, Daddy Long Legs and The Rains of Ranchipur. He directed The Gift of Love, Count Your Blessings, The Best of Everything in the late 1950s.
The film focuses on Christine Carere as a young student at the Sorbonne. She is engaged to a young man, played by Bradford Dillman. However, she is attracted by her uncle, Rossano Brazzi, who is unfaithful to his wife, charmingly played by Joan Fontaine. They begin an affair …
The film is based on a story by Francoise Sagan whose more popular story, Bonjour Tristesse, was also filmed at this time with Jean Seberg. These were the popular stories that would become part of big-budget melodramas eventually miniseries in the 1970s.
1. The meaning of the title, whose smile? the tone of the title and its irony? the overtones of the song and its lyrics?
2. Should the film have used such colourful backgrounds, wide screen colour, lush fashions and high society? Was the story lush in itself or was it brittle? The importance of the tone given by Johnny Matthis's song and its insertion into the film?
3. How successful was the narrative device? In involving the audience? The French atmosphere of the film and its locations? The American accents of some of the actors?
4. How real was the story? How unreal was it? For what audience was the film made? Was it specifically geared to female audiences? Why? Why are films like this called soap opera? Do they portray real behaviour?' Real motivation? The background of a rich and affluent world? Nevertheless, how do soap operas affect audiences and portray basic values that they respond to? In this case, how successful a soap opera was the film?
5. Could audiences identify with Dominique? The sequences at home, her parents upset at her the death, the portrayal of life at school? Her serious background and her study, her nervousness? Her initial relationship with Bertrand? Her initial reaction to Luke, the dinner, the kiss in the garden? Were the struggles of her emotions credible? The influence of Francoise on her, Francoise taking care of her and her mother, the fact that she was Luke's wife? The importance of her not seeing Luke and Bertrand? Her inability to sort out her emotions? The going to the nightclub and the effect on her? Her listening to Luke’s proposition? Her immediately going to Bertrand and trying to resolve the crisis without thinking? The importance of the sequences at home as Bertrand arrives and her mother responds unfavourably? Why did she say yes to the weak Luke? The effect of the work on her? So girlish, he bored? The truth of their relationship? Her going to Paris on impulse? The impact of Bertrand's discovering the truth, and her discovering Luke's fickleness? Was the sequence of her wandering credible? Francoise’s kindness at her attitude, not forgiving her easily? The possibility of relationship with Bertrand? what future did she have? How real was this portrayal? The emotional infatuation? Any insight into a girl in these circumstances?
6. How successful was the portrayal of Luke - as a lover, full of charm, shallow, his deceptions? The effect on Dominique? Did she change him at all? The importance of the finale and its confrontation with Francoise? Francoise accepting him back? His look to the future? Would their relationship last?
7. How attractive was Francoise – sophisticated, kind, so easily hurt by Dominique and Luke, understanding the truth, able to forgive them both? Was she a credible and admirable character?
8. Bertrand, how credible, in his work, relationship with his mother, love for Dominique, how dependable? His impact at Dominique’s home, his discovery of the truth, his willingness to forgive her? Would they have a happy marriage?
9. How well portrayed were the issues of love, infatuation, sexuality, their impact on life?
10. How real were these issues and their communication via soap opera?
