THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967)

I was curious what Jacques Demy did as a follow up after ripping out my heart and stomping on it with THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG.  Well, I never would have guessed this.

THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT is the story of two happy young girls (Catherine Deneuve and her real-life sister Francoise Dorleac) in the town of Rochefort.  They teach instruments and dancing to young kids and in their spare time they happily dance and sing all over the joint.  Nobody finds this strange because everybody happily sings and dances almost nonstop in Rochefort!  It's like an insane asylum.  Most of the action takes place around the main square.  You got the two girls, their mom, a music shop owner, a pretty waitress, some motorcycle salesmen, sailors, a painter, Gene Kelly...Gene Kelly?!!!  That's right.  Around the 45 minute mark Gene Kelly, Monsieur Twinkle Toes himself, comes strolling onscreen and my eyes popped out.  What's he doing here?  Singing and dancing apparently.  The singing sounded to be dubbed, but his French dialogue was impressive.

Anyway, the story is pretty basic: people longing to fall in love, blah, blah,blah, people fall in love, The End.  None of it seems to be taken seriously.  The dancing and the feel of the film seem to be more important.  That said, I wasn't feeling it.  Some of the songs were nice, but the majority of them left me flat.  The dancing was alright, but nothing jawdropping.  Overall, it was a tolerable watch, but I was really hoping for something better.

One interesting thing I did notice was in inclusion of Michel Piccoli who would also appear the same year with Catherine in BELLE DE JOUR, but in a much darker role.

IN HARM'S WAY (1965)

Reminiscent, at least to me, of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, IN HARM'S WAY also tells the story of various military personnel and their wives, husbands and lovers in Hawaii during 1941/1942.  And at 165 minutes it packs in a lot of story.

U. S. Navy Captain John Wayne is on duty during the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Kirk Douglas is his executive officer.  They manage to get their ship safely away, but other problems arise when Wayne disobeys orders while trying to track down an enemy vessel.  He's stripped of command and sentenced to desk duty.  Kirk has it even worse when he finds out that his wife was off screwing some dude on the beach during the attack and killed!  Other characters include John Wayne's estranged son who is also in the Navy and has thrown in with a seedy officer; the seedy officer himself; a nurse who's wanting to knock boots with The Duke; Burgess Meredith as Wayne's roommate; Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Franchot Tone as officers and the ridiculously sexy Jill Haworth as a nurse involved with both Wayne's son and Douglas.  There's also a side story about officer Tom Tyron and his wife Paula Prentiss, but it could have been cut completely.

IN HARM'S WAY is a good watch.  Most of the dramatic scenes were excellent, but unfortunately the action scenes towards the end are terribly dated and kinda boring.  The film had my total attention when Kirk and Jill were on the beach or when Wayne was making googly-eyes at Patricia Neal, but then the model boats come out with water splashing around and I felt my attention fading.  Also, IN HARM'S WAY just lacks the sheer acting power and emotional charge of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.  That movie was dynamite!  (Yes, I wrote that in Graham Chapman's voice.)

Entertaining watch with a impressive supporting cast, but dated.  Recommended for classic movie fans.