Maman Dearest

Capitaine Marleau #40, “Marleau à Saint-Tropez” (Marleau in St. Tropez), runtime 1:34:22
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Marleau is called to sun-drenched Saint-Tropez when Raphaël, the grandson of the very rich Léonard Michelli, is very kidnapped, and the local gendarmes are sent a very severed ear in the mail.

Only thing is– Léonard doesn’t want to pay the 30-million (euros?) ransom. The secretive Pénélope Milo (Marie-Josée Croze), daughter of local moviestar royalty (also Croze, in a brief flashback), might be one source of pressure. And why is Pénélope trying to get Lola (Raphaël’s girlfriend) out of the picture? Is Leonard’s son Dany too meek to be real? Is Lola’s dad Khader more than just Pénélope’s gardener? And how do the kidnappers seem to know what the Gendarmes are planning? Complicating matters is the discovery of the body of a murdered photographer, a paparazzo who was in possession of photos of Raphaël and Lola. What muck was he raking by visiting a gynecology clinic in Nice?

Marleau has only the local brigade on which to rely, featuring almost-identical twin lieutenants Félix and Martin, and their protective civilian aide/house mother Stéph.

l-r: Valentin Riot-Sarcey as Félix, Justin Chassel as Martin, Corinne Masiero, and Agathe Natanson as Stéph.

MISC

Keep an eye on Marleau’s hair. Unbraided, it becomes frizzier and frizzier— and blonder— as time passes, as though reacting to the hot Riviera weather. Which doesn't quite make sense, since there have been episodes in Corsica and Guadeloupe.


NOTES

Cold open: Gallais the photographer is played by Michel Ferracci, husband of the late Émilie Dequenne from Episode 36, “La 7eme danse,” in which he was Daniel the biker.  Ferracci also played Mori in Episode 18, “Pace e Salute” (the Corsica episode).

The grand aerial shot (1’09”) starts above Saint-Tropez flying west to east. The Plage de la Ponche beach is in the foreground; Portelet Tower is on the right; the bell tower is Église Paroissiale Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption. The Port of Saint-Tropez is in the background

Chekhov's trip to the airport

La nuit americaine (Day For Night), 1973. Runtime 1:55:58
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The first time I watched Day For Night was, and this absolutely dates me, not long after I first saw Close Encounters of The Third Kind. The part of ‘Mr Lacombe’ the French scientist/ET hunter was played by François Truffaut; since I was a kid I had never heard of him. I must have looked him up at the library, and some time afterward I saw his film Day For Night on TV, probably Seattle Channel 9, the PBS affiliate. Although it could have been NBC Channel 5, in those days the Bullitt family owned it, and their afternoon movie slot was where I first saw things like The Seven-Ups, What's Up, Doc?, and Sugarland Express.

l-r: Dani as Liliane, Jean-Pierre Léaud as Alphonse, Truffaut as Ferrand.

Being a kid, of course I didn't understand it. “So boring,” I probably said. I do recall being fascinated by the technical aspects of filmmaking.

Recently I came across a homemade CD of various French songs from different eras, and one of the tracks was Le grand choral, basically the Day For Night theme, composed by Georges Delerue. I recognized it immediately and was suddenly seized by an urge to see the film again.

I found the Criterion release, which I assume is the 2016 restoration. I don’t know where the Opensubtitles file came from. I quickly saw that the English translation had the sort of paraphrasing and abridgement that annoys me, so after watching it I thought it would make for a fun project.

*  *  *

In one of the best movies about moviemaking, Ferrand (Truffaut) is a director trying to make a formulaic romantic tragedy titled Meet Paméla, about a young wife who falls in love with her father-in-