Un acte d'amour (1953)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Anatole Litvak

Writers:

Alfred Hayes (novel)
Joseph Kessel (French dialogue)

Release Date:

17 December 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | War | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Refugee | Prostitution | Melodrama | Beautiful Woman | Suicide

Cast

Kirk Douglas	...	Robert Teller
Dany Robin	...	Lise Gudayec / Madame Teller
Serge Reggiani	...	Claude Lacaud
Barbara Laage	...	Nina
Fernand Ledoux	...	Fernand Lacaud
Marthe Mercadier	...	La fille de la terrasse
Gabrielle Dorziat	...	Adèle Lacaud
Grégoire Aslan	...	Commissaire
Brigitte Bardot	...	Mimi
Dora Doll	...	Une professionnelle
Robert Strauss	...	Sgt. Johnny Blackwood
Gilberte Géniat	...	Mrs. Ethel Henderson
George Mathews	...	Henderson
Leslie Dwyer	...	Le sergent anglais
Richard Benedict	...	Pete

Also Known As:

Act of Love (USA)
Quelque part dans le monde (France) (working title)

Runtime:

France:95 min | USA:108 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Magnaphone Western Electric

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #16748, Adult Audience) | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Filmauro

Trivia:

Kirk Douglas also did the French language version's dialogue.

Quotes:

Robert Teller: The River Seine. All my life I wanted to see it. Finally I saw it, with a gun in my hand. Travel, twentieth-century style.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Veraz (1991)

Casting Sentimentality Aside

How truly odd it is that so little attention to this film is evident in these archives. Apart from some quibbles one might have with its casting, the occasionally stilted dialogue, or some melodramatic nonsense here and there, it really is an important addition to the Kirk Douglas oeuvre as well as a story about a character very much like those he played later in "Paths of Glory" and "Lonely Are the Brave."

Douglas must have had more than a passing hand in choosing roles for himself during his career. Unlike many of his contemporaries (Brando comes to mind), he has played characters that require a fine balance between kinetic displays of a true hero and moments of self-effacing and troubled doubt. It is not so much the quality of the writing at work here as it is his own deliberate and skillful willingness to interpret the role honestly, without regard to any supposed preconceptions of what his audience expects of him.

I write this with a degree of reservation, because I never much cared for his voice or his looks. The fact that I admire his acting skill is perhaps all the more enhanced by this admission, however. With a profile a little less vivid and a better vocal range and timbre, he might have played Shakespeare.

His French colleagues in the present effort are more stereotypical than one cares for. They are made to speak a kind of pidgin English that was generally thought acceptable in 1953 for American audiences. Subtitles accompanying actual French would be requisite for any remake.

Moreover, there is that recurrent tinge of sentimentality and bathos. But I still liked it on the whole, giving it a solid 7 out of 10.