SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good concept, poorly executed.

A Brilliant Conflict

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Guitry is once again the center of attention of all the young, beautiful ladies of Paris. A visiting American matinée idol seduces his girlfriend, causing him to consider leaving her. After an attempted suicide, her best friend suggests that they get married instead. He agrees, but only if she becomes his lover on the wedding day. Guitry's double standard is appalling to watch: he berates his girlfriend for her affair, barely keeping himself from hitting her, all the while plotting his next conquest. As with all of Guitry's films, it's dialog driven and tedious to sit through, only the presence of Jacqueline Delubac makes it bearable, but when you realize she is Guitry's wife in real life, even that loses its appeal.

"Quadrille" is a film written, directed and starring Sascha Guitry. And, like the few films of his I have seen before, it's a comedy about sex and the upper class. Guitry plays a man who has lived with a woman for six years. Finally, he's getting around to the notion of asking her to marry him. Unfortunately, his timing is terrible as his beloved just met an international movie star--and this star is intent on bedding her. What is Sascha to do? While the general plot idea wasn't bad, the execution left a lot to be desired. So, although the acting was good, the film was bogged down because almost nothing happened...other than the characters talking and talking and talking. In fact, compared to other films, this one had very few scenes--just very long and dull ones where the folks talked and talked about love and sex but didn't do much of anything. I found it to be a well-acted but very dull affair indeed--and perhaps my vote of 5 is being charitable. I noticed that the other reviews were much more positive and so I am definitely the odd man out here.

No, it's not Les Règles du jeu or one of the great classics of the French cinema. But this movie is FUNNY!!! In a very Guitryesque, nasty sort of way. The humor of the dialogue is truly brilliant - though of course Guitry gives himself all the best lines. But there are a lot of them, and they are often devastatingly funny.There is not so much a plot as a situation, THE situation of French farce: Guitry plays what he is, an older man, whose mistress (Gaby Morlay) meets a young American movie star and falls in love with him. Guitry must come to terms with that, but it's not too painful, as he has just fallen in love with his lover's best friend, Delubec, who, quite frankly, is far more attractive than Morlay and far more interesting. So everyone wins.As do the viewers, because the situations provoke one devastatingly clever bon mot after the next, mostly from Guitry.This is not French for beginners. Guitry and Delubuc speak as fast as is humanly possible, though with a clarity of diction that speaks to their training in the theater. I don't know how funny this would be if you had to read the subtitles, as you would lose all the inflections, which are half the humor. But if you can follow it in French, you will have one very enjoyable hour and 40 some minutes.

Some forty years ago there were two enormously talented French Writer-Directors who moved effortlessly between Stage and Screen, often adapting their own theatrical triumphs for film. If Marcel Pagnol is arguably still remembered outside France by virtue of his great Trilogy (Marius, Fanny, Cesar) of the early thirties and the late quartet (Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources, La Gloire de ma pere, La Château de ma mere) some fifty years later, then Sacha Guitry is no less celebrated still in France, or Paris at least, where retrospectives are a regular thing on the Art House/Revival circuit. Whilst there was little to choose between them in terms of talent and craftsmanship Pagnol tended to favor rural tradespeople - Bakers, Well-Diggers, Saloonkeepers - whilst Guitry was more inclined to write about urban sophisticates.This typical Guitry entry was remade by Valerie Lemercier, who also acted in it as did Guitry himself (an extra string that was lacking in the bow of Pagnol) and now, thanks to the generosity of the guy in Norway, I am the proud owner of the DVD of Quadrille. The Guitry 'touch' is evident throughout from his penchant for showing clips of not only actors but technicians in the opening credits to his polished take on contemporary mores and scintillating dialogue. On paper this is little more than mixed sexual doubles but on celluloid it's game, set and match to an old maestro.