Surprisingly, yes:
“The publicity men, who are the chaps who run film festivals, think that an event is cultural if it’s foreign, and even more cultural if it’s wearing a bathing costume.”
Ken Russell may have had such a nightmarish time making his debut feature
French Dressing and trying to live down its terrible reception by audiences and the studio alike in 1964 that he never seemed to have a good word for it – indeed, he even swore off ever making another film at the time. And yet, while it’s not the masterpiece he later thought after a Damascene conversion when he stumbled across it on late night TV decades later, it’s certainly a surprisingly likeable and charming comedy that rarely seems too disfigured by the scars of its constant rewrites.
A cross between Jacques Tati, nouvelle vague and British self-deprecation, along with Norman Wisdom’s Press for Time it’s one of the few films that really gives a sense of what it’s like to live in a coastal town that depends for its livelihood on tourists who rarely come and where the locals and councillors alike try to find something, anything to fill in the general feeling of emptiness and drab isolation. In this case it’s deckchair attendant James Booth’s idea of holding a French film festival in the coastal resort of Gormleigh-on-Sea (in reality Herne Bay), the kind of town with hundreds of deckchairs laid out but not a single holidaymaker in sight if you don’t have a pair of extremely strong binoculars. To pull it off he has to persuade Melissa Mell’s Bardotesque starlet that the festival is just the thing to give her the artistic credibility she craves and prevent Bryan Pringle’s pompous but insatiably randy mayor from taking over so he can get his hands on her (“If I had my way, we’d be on the back row.” “Really? Why, are you long sighted?”).
The constant rewrites and revolving door of writers (even TV presenter Robert Robinson ended up writing his own scenes, which are among the funniest in the film) leave it a bit unfocused at times and it never really digs very deep. As befits its seaside setting, there’s a constant undercurrent of smut and lust behind the faux propriety (“Certificate X? Ooh, I do like a good art film!”), but it’s as much a sendup of Anglo-French misconceptions as the film industry, with Mel officially welcomed to Gormleigh with a disastrous pageant celebrating French culture – the Normans blinding King Harold, the Foreign Legion killing Arabs and Van Gogh and Lautrec painting a nude model – and rival seaside towns decrying the unEnglish atmosphere that ensues and provoking riots during screenings to sabotage it.
Naturally there’s a moral in tow, as Booth gets so drawn into the make-believe world he’s created that he starts to overlook his girlfriend, model turned bad actress Alita Naughton, who can’t act to save her life but isn’t going to let that stop her, compensating by resorting to volume and a pretty quizzical smile when all else fails, as it frequently does. And yet you can understand exactly why she was cast – she has a real personality that shines through her lack of technique making even her enthusiastic hopelessness become rather engaging and her more natural moments provide a stark contrast to Melissa Mell forgetting her desire to be taken seriously as an actress and playing up to the cameras every time the paparazzi appear. Booth could often veer into belligerent domineering cynicism that tends to steamroller the sympathy out of his characters, but he’s much more likeable here even when taking advantage of best friend and local entertainments officer Roy Kinnear.
It’s a terrific looking film thanks to Kenneth Higgins’ black and white Scope photography (despite the setting, this is a film that really cries out for black and white and the vast empty spaces of the widest of wide screens), and there’s a wonderful mixture of surreal imagery (the mayor and his council roller skating in top hat and tails) with some genuinely beautiful moments of pure visual poetry (the ferry’s departure). The French nouvelle vague definitely makes its influence felt with the sense of energy Russell gives the tracking shots of Booth cycling down the seemingly endless pier or running through the streets of Boulogne, though unfortunately the worst trend of Sixties comedies also makes an appearance, the dreaded sped up sequence and chase (I blame that Richard Lester myself), though thankfully not often enough to cause any lasting damage. It’s also a terrific sounding film too thanks to a exceptionally good score by Georges Delerue that neatly bridges his early Truffaut films and British comedy tradition with more than a passing nod to Jacques Tati while driving the film along with a sense of jaunty melancholy. That may sound contradictory but makes perfect sense when you hear it – think of it as whistling merrily to yourself on the road to Purgatory. And the town is more Purgatory than Hell, with its perfectly captured feeling of endlessly waiting for something, anything without leaving the viewer feeling the same.
Carry On Girls took the basic premise, changed it to a beauty contest and made a mint at the box-office despite getting just as bad reviews. A lot of the jokes in French Dressing are just as old, if not older, and it certainly shows some of the scars of its troubled production, but Russell’s sense of place and wonderful visual sense and Delerue’s score more than just paper over them, they give the film a real heart and soul that’s both surprising and surprisingly charming. It’s the kind of Ken Russell film you can imagine even people who don’t like Ken Russell films liking.
I'd love a Bluray upgrade and a long overdue CD release for Delerue's score, but for now the DVD will have to do.
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