La Garçonne (1936)
Directed by Jean de Limur

Film Review

When it was first published in 1922, Victor Margueritte's novel La Garçonne (a.k.a. The Tomboy) met with almost universal condemnation in the press for its lurid account of a young woman leading a thoroughly emancipated life in the aftermath of the First World War.  In some quarters, the book was written off as sensation-seeking pornography, and even feminists railed against it, fearing that it undermined their cause by portraying the modern woman as a depraved creature living the most debauched of lifestyles.  The year after the film's publication, it was turned into a film by Armand Du Plessy, but this fell foul of the censor and, branded highly immoral, was hastily withdrawn from circulation.  It was thirteen years before another film producer was brave enough to adapt Margueritte's scabrous novel, and it is curious that that producer should be Albert Dieudonné, whose main claim to fame is playing the title role in Abel Gance's biographical epic Napoléon (1927).

Dieudonné not only produced the film he also scripted it, but whilst he had already shown himself to be a capable film director, he handed over the directing duties to Jean de Limur, who had previously worked as an assistant to Charlie Chaplin on A Woman of Paris (1923) and G.W. Pabst on Don Quichotte (1933).  Perhaps over-mindful of the notoriety of the original novel, Dieudonné and Limur both draw a discrete veil over its more lubricious aspects, so that what they end up delivering is a fairly tepid melodrama that is only just redeemed by the quality of its performances and some occasional moments of censor-baiting daring.  An unlikely choice for the lead role is Marie Bell, who, cast against type, proves to be surprisingly effective as a woman railing against the hypocrisies and conventions of her bourgeois class.  Tame though it is by today's 'anything goes' standards, the more sordid aspects of Margueritte's novel - Monique's lesbian love affairs and penchant for drugs and orgies - are presented with a bravado that was pretty well unheard of in cinema of this era.  Needless to say, La Garçonne was a risqué film for its day, and the controversy it aroused inevitably made it a commercial success.  It's worth noting, en passant, that Jacqueline Audry directed a further adaptation in 1957, one that manages to feel even more strait-laced and cautious than Limur's, despite the relaxation in attitudes towards free love that had come about in the intervening twenty years.

The 1936 film is notable as being the one in which the great chansonnier Édith Piaf made her screen debut.  Here, Piaf momentarily steals the film with a musical number that expresses the illicit desires that the screenwriter and director obviously couldn't bring themselves to graphically present on screen.  (An explicit love scene involving two women was strictly taboo.)  Attention grabbing though Piaf is, it is another screen débutante, Arletty, who leaves the strongest impression, however.  Made up as a blonde music hall diva, the actress is at her most stunning and brazenly sensual.  For the record, this is not the only time Arletty played an overtly lesbian character - she did so some years later in Jacqueline Audry's Huis clos (1954).  The sequence where Arletty casually seduces Bell, enticing her from one world (that of dull bourgeois conformity) towards another (one of seemingly limitless artistic and personal freedom) is a rare moment of honest daring in an otherwise pretty forgettable film.  It's a shame that, after a brief foray into virgin territory (how many films of this era even allude to the idea of romantic love between women?), a lack of imagination and fear of a critical backlash drive the narrative back onto a more conventional track for its final act.  You don't have to be a fully paid-up feminist to have your stomach turned by the final scene, which glibly reminds us where a woman's place is in civilised society.

Film Synopsis

In the early 1920s, Monique Lerbier is leading a contented life in the country with her elderly aunt when her parents summon her to Paris on the pretext of marrying her off.  Monique does as is required of her, which is to fall in love with and become engaged to the man that has been selected for her, not knowing that the marriage has been arranged primarily to secure a substantial investment in her father's business.  On the eve of the wedding, Monique discovers that her future husband had an affair with another woman for three years and has fathered a child outside wedlock.  Appalled, she calls off the wedding at once and refuses to have anything more to do with her parents.  Determined to make her own way in life, Monique opens a small shop where she sells furniture and objets d'art.  One day, she falls under the spell of an alluring music hall performer, Niquette, and soon becomes her lover.  Through Niquette's artistic contacts, Monique begins to make a name for herself as a theatrical designer and acquires an ever-expanding circle of amorous admirers.  One of her lovers, Régis Boisselot, becomes wildly possessive of Monique and cannot bear to share her with anyone else.  Monique's insistence that she belongs to no one will ultimately drive Régis to the limit of sanity...