Jacques Demy's follow-up to
Umbrellas, this one's a more traditional musical, in that there are definite separate numbers, lots of dancing, and actual speaking of lines in between the numbers. It's also a lot sillier and bigger budget, even featuring Gene Kelly. The candy colors remain, however, and it seems clear that it was an influence both on
this and
this. Catherine Deneuve (whose hair is
very silly - AKA super-60s in this one) and her real-life sister Françoise Dorléac
(don't google what happened to her) play twin sisters, the latter, Solange, a composer, the former, Delphine, a dancer, who are tired of provincial life. They are self-employed in a studio while their mother, Yvonne, who raised them on her own, runs a cafe in the central square of the town, that nonetheless never has more than a couple of people in it at one time, one of whom always seems to be her father, who busies himself building a model aeroplane. Passing through the cafe at various points are Maxence, a blond soldier/sailor (we see him in different uniforms) who is really an artist, Etienne and Bill, "carnies" who travel the countryside putting on shows and trying to hawk Honda motorbikes (and who, despite being self-described ladies men, give off a very gay vibe and sport little white pixie boots) and Dutrouz, an old army buddy who has just recently reunited with Yvonne's father after decades. The last key players are Simon Dame (yes, Monsieur Dame, a silly name that plays a large role in the proceedings), a music store proprietor and his friend from conservatory days, the successful American composer Andy Miller (Kelly).
The whole thing is a series of coincidences and missed connections. Turns out Yvonne has a young son (implausibly named "Bouboo") of ten by a different father from the girls, whom she abandoned shortly after conceiving him because she couldn't bear the thought of taking his name and becoming, you guessed it, Mme. Dame. (Why haven't they met? Well, Simon has only just relocated from Paris, and he's under the impression that Yvonne is living in Mexico with a millionaire, because that's what she told him.) But Simon knows Solange, because of the music connection, and promises to write to his friend Andy to introduce them, as he knows Andy is visiting Paris, where Solange and Delphine plan to relocate to. Meanwhile Maxence has drawn a picture of his "feminine ideal" which gets hung in the gallery owned by the sleazy Guillaume (I forgot to mention him) who pursues Delphine constantly. She sees it and thinks it's her (because it looks just like her) and demands to meet the artist, and while Guillaume lets slip that he's a soldier, he lies that he's already gone to Paris. Yvonne keeps getting Etienne and Bill to go to pick up Bouboo from school because she doesn't trust the girls to remember to do so, but they do, and consequently the carnies meet the daughters in suspicious circumstances.
Solange refuses to give Bouboo up to them on the second day, something that makes him throw a tantrum (they bought him sweets the previous time) and knock her music out of her hands. While picking it up, she bumps into Andy, visiting town to see if he can surprise his old friend Simon, and is smitten (despite the fact that Kelly looks at least 50), without learning his name. She also leaves without a page of her composition, which Kelly later plays and is impressed by. MEANWHILE, two dancing girls who are part of Etienne and Bill's show quit suddenly, and they convince the sisters to replace them and put on a dance number. MEANWHILE, in a completely out-of-left-field development, there's a psychotic axe-murderer in town, who chops up an older woman and puts her in a suitcase! Do we know him? Well, here's Yvonne reading who it is:
Will all of our connections be made or will people keep missing each other (usually by walking into Yvonne's cafe as the other is walking out the other entrance)? Watch it and spend an enjoyable, very French, very '60s couple of hours, with lots of implausible prancing, badly faked musicianship and outrageous hair and makeup. But don't expect it to linger in the mind like
Umbrellas did - it's as fizzy and sweet (and brightly colored) as Orangina,
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