Les Amants de demain (1959)
Directed by Marcel Blistène

Film Review

Four years before her untimely death in October 1963, the legendary chansonnier Édith Piaf made her final film appearance in this lacklustre melodrama. The film was directed by Marcel Blistène, who had given Piaf one of her first (and best) dramatic roles in Étoile sans lumière (1946) alongside her real-life partner at the time, Yves Montand. With a plot (apparently conceived by the actor Pierre Brasseur) that is both cumbersome and somewhat out-dated, Les Amants de demain is easily the weakest of Piaf's outings as a screen actress, and the film is not helped by Piaf's far from stunning performance (by this stage, visibly aged before her time, she appears to have no enthusiasm for acting).  Co-star Michel Auclair appears even more wooden than Piaf, and the only spark of vitality the film has to offer is supplied by Armand Mestral, who is superb as Piaf's philandering brute of a husband.  The film marked not only the end of Piaf's screen career, it was also Blistène's last directing credit, and (if this Grade A yawn-a-thon is anything to go by) not before time. Interestingly, the score was supplied by Marguerite Monnot, who wrote the music for many of Piaf's best-known songs, including Mon légionnaire, Hymne à l'amour and Milord.

Film Synopsis

One Christmas Eve, Pierre Montfort is desperately on the run after killing his wife in a moment of madness when his car breaks down.  Stranded in the suburbs of Paris, he takes refuge in a small boarding house, Les Géraniums, where he finds himself drawn to Simone, the unhappy wife of the man who owns the flea-ridden establishment, Louis.  Continually abused and neglected by her crude, womanising husband, Simone is more miserable than she can bear, and eventually she can take no more.  Fortunately, Pierre is there to prevent her from killing Louis and the two unhappy individuals become companions in adversity.  It is now that Pierre reveals his own terrible secret, just as his portrait begins to circulate in the newspapers...