A very pleasant surprise about this story of a past hoodlum (magnificent Françoise Arnoul) coming back to Paris for a business rendez-vous with her husband and spending a night back in the area of her youth, meeting her old friends more than ever surexcited. We see Françoise Arnoul in great scenes of rock and roll dances. All the scenes with black leather hoodlums are much less cliché than Hollywood tennage movies completely stupid. In "Asphalte", the atmosphere is strong and moody, these hoodlums look like film noir characters, espacially the bartender, one of my favorite in this movie, you can't miss him. Also the taxi driver and of course Marcel Bozzuffi as the violent ex lover. Not very fan of Massino Girotti, quite dull as the husband. Fine parisian settings with the rich people in luxury cabarets and at the hotel Crillon, and hoodlums in lost Paris.
3 Reviews
A fair french noir drama
searchanddestroy-115 December 2012
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is available in France, but is rarely aired on channels. We find here very good characterizations, realistic at the most. Françoise Arnould plays here a married woman who decides one day to get away from her husband and return from her childhood place, where she meets all her former friends, and lovers. I repeat, a very good and poignant atmosphere. We could consider it, from time to time, as a sort of french REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. The Nick Ray's film, I guess, was still in producers', screen writer's and director's memory.
Watch out for Marcel Bozzufi, in a early character, Bozzufi who was one of the greatest french heavy of the sixties and seventies.
You'll find some rock and roll sequences, right in the atmosphere of the late fifties and early sixties. Many young hoodlums too, as you may guess.
A good piece of work.
Watch out for Marcel Bozzufi, in a early character, Bozzufi who was one of the greatest french heavy of the sixties and seventies.
You'll find some rock and roll sequences, right in the atmosphere of the late fifties and early sixties. Many young hoodlums too, as you may guess.
A good piece of work.
Take a (little) walk on the wild side.
dbdumonteil4 July 2020
At the time ,screenwriter Jacques Sigurd was a spent force : " dédée d'anvers" "une si jolie petite plage " and "manèges" seemed very far away ; "cargaison blanche" ,"du mouron pour les petits oiseaux " and the ridiculous "constance aux enfers" or worse "le désert de Pigalle " were hollow echoes of a brilliant past.
And Hervé Bromberger ,who gave two interesting movies about the lost generation of the fifties ("les fruits sauvages" "les loups dans la bergerie" ) ,gets lost in this poor story of a working class girl turned bourgeoise via marriage and ,for a while takes a walk on the wild side where she meets again her old pals ,one of whom accidently commits a murder .Nicole (Françoise Arnoul ) is not really involved in the yarn and she looks like a tourist coming to see the milieu in which she was nurtured ;one may think , anyway,that the ending is distastefully bourgeois .
This is a slow-moving flick,something like "the NV visits the young louts "; except for Marcel Bozzuffi , whom one rarely sees young,and who was to become a strong supporting actor, the rest of the young actors quickly sank into oblivion: Jean-François Poron (part of the cast of " les loups dans la bergerie" and future duke of Nemours in "la princesse de Clèves" ) and Jean-Paul Vignon who went to work in America (his wish ,but Charles Boyer's and Louis Jourdan's reality).Roger dumas ,in spite of his youthful looks, is the most endearing.
Needless to say,Massimo Girotti is wasted .
And Hervé Bromberger ,who gave two interesting movies about the lost generation of the fifties ("les fruits sauvages" "les loups dans la bergerie" ) ,gets lost in this poor story of a working class girl turned bourgeoise via marriage and ,for a while takes a walk on the wild side where she meets again her old pals ,one of whom accidently commits a murder .Nicole (Françoise Arnoul ) is not really involved in the yarn and she looks like a tourist coming to see the milieu in which she was nurtured ;one may think , anyway,that the ending is distastefully bourgeois .
This is a slow-moving flick,something like "the NV visits the young louts "; except for Marcel Bozzuffi , whom one rarely sees young,and who was to become a strong supporting actor, the rest of the young actors quickly sank into oblivion: Jean-François Poron (part of the cast of " les loups dans la bergerie" and future duke of Nemours in "la princesse de Clèves" ) and Jean-Paul Vignon who went to work in America (his wish ,but Charles Boyer's and Louis Jourdan's reality).Roger dumas ,in spite of his youthful looks, is the most endearing.
Needless to say,Massimo Girotti is wasted .
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