La Tour, prends garde! (1958)
Directed by Georges Lampin

Film Review

Jean Marais stars in this big budget historical fantasy directed by Georges Lampin.  The film's extravagant production values are not matched by the quality of its script nor its direction, however.  So, whilst the film is visually stunning - particularly the lavish location filming (in Yugoslavia) - it feels a somewhat dry and shallow substitute for a more serious historical drama.  Marais is, as ever, magnificent as the swashbuckling hero, although his romantic pairing with an actress who looks less than half his age appears more than a little suspect.  The film is probably best known for marking the screen debut of a certain Jean-Pierre Léaud, a child actor who would, one year later, star in Francois Truffaut's Les 400 coups and subsequently become one of the faces most closely identified with the French New Wave.

Film Synopsis

In the mid-17th century, Henri La Tour leads a troupe of travelling actors at the time when France is at war with Austria.  Appearing before King Louis XV and his court, La Tour displeases the Duke of Saint-Sever, who orders him to be flogged.  Publicly disgraced, La Tour soon redeems himself by recovering the king's standard after it has been taken by the Austrian army.  La Tour's reward for this act of chivalry is to fight a duel with Saint-Sever.  During the duel, both men are attacked by a band of Austrian soldiers and Saint-Sever is killed, stabbed by his enemy Pérouge.  Before he dies, the Duke implores La Tour to find his illegitimate daughter, Toinon, and make sure that she inherits his estate.  Without delay, La Tour heads off to Paris, where he rescues Toinon from the clutches of the wicked Taupin, who exploits her as a servant.  Blamed for Saint-Sever's death, La Tour is arrested and thrown into prison, but he escapes with the help of his fellow actors.  By this time Toinon has been deported to America after being branded a prostitute by Taupin and Pérouge...