Les enfants terribles (1950)

Director:

Jean-Pierre Melville
(more)

Writers:

Jean Cocteau (novel)
Jean Cocteau (adaptation)
(more)

Release Date:

28 July 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Elisabeth is very protective of her teenage brother Paul, who is injured in a snowball fight at school and has to rest in bed most of the time...

Plot Keywords:

Brother Sister Relationship | Dead Teen Couple | Gay Interest | Paris France | Poison

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

Nicole Stéphane	...	Elisabeth
Edouard Dermithe	...	Paul
Renée Cosima	...	Dargelos / Agathe
Jacques Bernard	...	Gerard
Melvyn Martin	...	Michael
Maria Cyliakus	...	The Mother
Jean-Marie Robain	...	Headmaster
Maurice Revel	...	Doctor
Rachel Devirys
Adeline Aucoc	...	Mariette
Emile Mathys	...	Vice Principal
Roger Gaillard	...	Gerard's Uncle
Jean Cocteau	...	Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hélène Rémy

Directed by
Jean-Pierre Melville
Jean Cocteau		(uncredited)

Writing credits
Jean Cocteau		(novel)
Jean Cocteau		(adaptation and dialogue)
Jean-Pierre Melville		(writer) uncredited

Produced by
Jean-Pierre Melville	....	producer

Cinematography by
Henri Decaë

Film Editing by
Monique Bonnot

Production Design by
Emile Mathys
Jean-Pierre Melville

Costume Design by
Christian Dior		(dresses)

Makeup Department
Hagop Arakelian	....	makeup artist

Production Management
J. Boussard	....	assistant unit manager
J. Braley	....	production manager
Jean-Pierre Melville	....	production manager
Philip Schwob	....	unit manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michel Drach	....	trainee assistant director
Jacques Guymont	....	second assistant director
Claude Pinoteau	....	assistant director

Sound Department
Jacques Carrère	....	sound mixer
Maurice Dagonneau	....	boom operator
R. Durand	....	sound recordist
Jacques Gallois	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
André Dino	....	still photographer
J. Thibaudier	....	camera operator

Editorial Department
Colette Charbonneau	....	assistant editor
Claude Durand	....	assistant editor

Music Department
Paul Bonneau	....	musical director

Production Companies

• Melville Productions

Distributors

• Gaumont (1950) (France) (theatrical) (as Gaumont Distribution)
• Arthur Mayer-Edward Kingsley (1952) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Silver Cine (1993) (West Germany) (theatrical)
• ARTE (2001) (Germany) (TV) (subtitled)
• Criterion Collection, The (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Homescreen (2009) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• Moskwood Media (1998) (Netherlands) (VHS)

Also Known As:

Jean Cocteau's Les enfants terribles (France) (complete title)
The Strange Ones

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:18 (nf) | UK:12 (2000) | UK:X (1976) (re-rating) | UK:X (1952) | Australia:PG | Spain:18

Filming Locations:

Ermenonville, Oise, France

Company:

Melville Productions

Trivia:

Jean Cocteau was allowed a day of shooting, when Jean-Pierre Melville wasn't feeling up to the mark. Cocteau was to follow Melville's instructions exactly or do nothing at all. Eight shots in all, which were supposed to be of a summer's day but were done in midwinter in the rain.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (2004) (VG)

Soundtrack:

Were You Smiling At Me

Creative Schizophrenia - Two Great Auteurs Don't Mix!

First, I have to admit that I nearly didn't write this comment at all. I read a rave review of Les Enfants Terribles by an earlier user and agreed with (almost) every word of it. What more was there to add? Then I searched my soul for a day or so, and had to admit that this film REALLY does not work for me - brilliantly directed, skilfully acted, moodily photographed and lyrically scored though it may be.

For all its many splendours, this Melville film of a Cocteau novel suffers from a malady I can only describe as "creative schizophrenia." It is recognisably a work by two highly individual artists, each of whom creates his own distinctive and magical world. No film by Melville could ever be mistaken for anybody else's. The same is true of Cocteau.

How do these two worlds mix together? To put it bluntly, not at all. This is most apparent in the (mis)casting of the androgynous and incestuous brother-sister duo. With his porcelain cheekbones and languid sensuality, Edouard Dhermitte is a classic Cocteau actor. (He was, in fact, Cocteau's lover at the time.) With her politicised Left Bank angst and 'butch' vitality, Nicole Stephane is a classic Melville heroine. (She had starred in his much finer 1947 film Le Silence de la Mer.) These two actors scarcely seem to belong on the same planet, let alone in the same family.

Still more disheartening is the utter lack of allure of Renee Cosima, a pudgy young ingenue who is cast as the brother's two ambisexual love objects - the sadistic schoolboy Dargelos and the lovelorn model Agathe. Lacking even the tiniest flicker of charisma, whether as a man or as a woman, Cosima makes it difficult for us to empathise with the hero's erotic longings, or to care much about the hothouse melodrama that breaks loose as a result.

Try as I might to warm to this film, I cannot help imagining it with a different cast. As the brother and sister, Helmut Berger and Dominique Sanda from The Garden of the Finzi Continis. As the androgynous sexual pirate Agathe/Dargelos, maybe Katharine Hepburn from Sylvia Scarlett or Indrid Thulin from The Magician or (why not?) the immortal Anne Carlisle from Liquid Sky. Most important of all - and I know this smacks of heresy - I would much rather Cocteau had directed it himself. One great auteur should be enough for any film.

David Melville