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Les Anciens de Saint-Loup
1950 Drama
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Credits
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Director: Georges Lampin
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Script: Georges Lampin, Pierre Véry
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Photo: Louis Page
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Music: Georges Van Parys
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Cast: Bernard Blier (Jean Laclaux),
Pierre Larquey (M. Jacquelin,
directeur du collège),
Serge Lecointe,
Monique Mélinand (Hélène Laclaux),
François Périer (Charles
Merlin),
Serge Reggiani (L'abbé Paul Forestier),
Christian Simon,
Germaine Stainval,
Odile Versois (Catherine Jacquelin),
Pamela Wilde
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 90 min
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Summary
Former pupils of a boy’s boarding school, Saint-Loup, are invited back for a reunion.
The guests turn up, eager to revisit the setting of their happy childhoods and
renew old acquaintances. But they are surprised to discover
that the school is in a state of disrepair. The principal Monsieur Jacquelin reveals
that he invited them back to ask them to lend him money to save the school from being
closed. Unfortunately, the most likely benefactor, the eminent
banker Jean Laclaux, is facing financial ruin, and none of the other guests has the money
required to save the school. To make matters worse, the principal’s
neice, Catherine, who was planning to run away with Laclaux, has been shot dead...
Review
Georges Lampin makes a reasonable job of directing a film that seems to have an identity
crisis almost from the first scene. The cocktail of film noir,
romantic intrigue, thriller whodunit, sentimental nostalgia and mild comedy is a tad indigestible,
in spite of some fine contributions from a high calibre cast. Whilst
the first half of the film works well, particularly in the way the characters are explored
and played off against one another, the narrative does feel pretty aimless.
But it is in the film’s last twenty minutes or so that things go badly wrong and
the plot becomes absurdly fragmented and implausible, with no real attempt at a tidy resolution.
© James Travers 2006
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