The Twilight Girls (1957) User Reviews

haunting faces, creeping eroticism

[goblinhairedguy · 6/10 · 11 March 2004]

Despite its frank (for the time) look at schoolgirl lust, this is ultimately a rather tepid melodrama in the traditional French coming-of-age genre. Due to the staid setting and pedestrian direction, it affords none of the retro-chic cachet of other foreign films imported by Radley Metzger's Audubon Films at the time. In fact, Metzger ingeniously shot and inserted some racier nude and lesbian scenes for the delayed import version (included on both the VHS and DVD releases), featuring a young, innocent-looking Georgina Spelvin! However, the requisite shower scene featuring Agnes Laurent is obviously from the original. There is also a gratifying hint of middle-aged adults being much more in tune with the girls' problems and desires than one would expect, and an equally fascinating subtext of adults (both male and female) lusting after the not-always-so-innocent girls.

The film serves best as a time capsule of the era just on the brink of the sexual revolution, and especially as a gallery of fascinating faces which decorated other Eurocult items -- Laurent, Estella Blain (who steals the show here with her exotic look) and, as a little girl, Catherine Deneuve, much spunkier than in any of her adult roles. Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog also believes he sees a teenage Bardot in one scene, but this is not readily apparent in the VHS version. Metzger would go on to create his own Euro-style schoolgirl epic, Therese and Isabelle.

Catherine Deneuve as Adelaide

[a-laly · 5/10 · 13 January 2006]

There is much speculation that Catherine Deneuve, who debuted in this film, is one of the older girls. NOT. She is little Adelaide, the sleepwalking, ice cream thief and nocturnal mischief maker. All her scenes on the DVD are in the original French with English subtitles to retain Catherine's voice. The rest of the film is dubbed in English. The film was released when Deneuve was 13. It seems the scenes were shot when Catherine was maybe 10 or 11.

For its time, the film was very daring; nudity and lesbian overtones. When released in the US, the New York film board tried to censor and block the film. Fortunately, they did not succeed as the courts ruled in favor of free speech.

Sylvie Dorléac is Adélaïde

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 5/10 · 5 February 2017]

Sylvie Dorléac is Catherine Deneuve's young sister. Their father Maurice Dorléac was an actor and Renée Deneuve (she is 105 today) was dubbing American actresses (Olivia de Havilland, Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz) and played on stage. A very happy family of actors, Catherine and Françoise became stars.

Sylvie Dorléac played in only three movies : Le Blé En Herbe, Les Collégiennes, Les Petits Chats. In Les Collégiennes, she plays Adélaïde the "sleepwalker" who steals in the kitchen at night and she appears in several scenes. Catherine wasn't yet interested in acting, she was still very shy and appeared in this movie very very briefly. I wish I could see Les Petits Chats with Sylvie Dorléac and Catherine Deneuve together again for the last time on screen.

About Les Collégiennes, it is the usual story of young girls in boarding school, with their love story, treated in a classic way, nothing violent.

I saw the french print in which I didn't see any nudity, I'm not interested in vulgar editing distorting the original movie.

No longer children, but not yet women.

[lastliberal · 5/10 · 4 July 2008]

This is a curiosity in that it is Catherine Deneuve's film debut. She is the little one that sneaks into the pantry at night pretending to be sleepwalking. I understand that most of her shots were removed from the film when it was sent to America, but this copy has all of them restored.

O course, the interest is in the moody and mysterious Catherine (Marie-Hélène Arnaud), who joins the school late in the year. She looks more adult than school child. Sylvie Dorléac plays the part of Adelaide, Sylvie is actually Catherine Deneuve's sister, as La Deneuve was Catherine Dorléac when she appeared in this film.

This film has been altered in another way. Georgina Spelvin (The Devil in Miss Jones) and, I'm guessing Yvonne Monlaur were added for American audiences. The luscious breasts and bodacious bootys were spliced in and the actresses appear no where else in the film. Their scenes are well lit also. You would think it daylight instead of night.

Not a bad little film....but a very strange pedigree, indeed.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 12 November 2011]

This film has a very peculiar pedigree. Originally, it was a relatively innocent French film. When it was brought to the US, however, some geniuses got the idea of spicing it up--adding nudity and a much stronger lesbian subtext! Usually, European films were thought to be much more adult at that time and this is an odd case of Americans adding salacious content to their films. Now this caused problems, as the New York censor board wasn't about to allow the film to be released--and a two year battle ensued before it was eventually released...and the film board was disbanded. To learn about this and more, watch the little featurette included on the DVD.

Another interesting thing is that a MINOR character in the film was excised when the film was first shown in the States. Years later, it turned out this young lady, Catherine Dorléac, grew up to become known as Catherine Deneuve--and suddenly the film was begin billed on re-release as starring Deneuve, though, as I said, her part was small. Most of her part had been excised because it was part of a mostly irrelevant subplot. But, in order to make a DVD with this film, it features two very different copies of the film--and it's obvious that it was pieced together. The originally excised portions are still in French (with subtitles) and the rest is English-dubbed! A weird experience, indeed.

As for the film, if you can look past the crap that was added to 'spice it up', it's a pretty good little film. There still is a gay subtext, though it isn't quite as strong and the nudity appears to have been mostly added later. It begins at a girls school in France. While it looks like it's supposed to be for girls about age 10-18, the film concerns the oldest girls in the school--and most of them appear to be about 21 (more of less) and most of them look like models! The one exception is the VERY stereotypical fat girl who literally ALWAYS is shown eating candy (a lousy and one-dimensional character to say the least).

A girl comes to the school. She is model-beautiful and very talented. Soon, practically everyone seems think she's great. Men drool over her, her teachers and fellow students are big fans and one student in particular seems more than just her fan--there are pretty strong lesbian vibes. When the new girl falls in love with a handsome and talented young man, problems soon occur. Some is because she's underage and her aunt does not approve, some is because the school doesn't approve and most is because her #1 fan at school feels that their love is threatened by this man. It's all pretty interesting and handled reasonably well. It's really too bad there doesn't appear to be a copy of the film as it was originally created. The copy I saw DID have the Deneuve scenes added--but also the spicy ones. Worth seeing, though, in spire of all this.