GOODBYE AGAIN
(director:Anatole Litvak; screenwriters: from the novel “Aimez-vous Brahms?” by Françoise Sagan/Samuel A. Taylor; cinematographer: Armand Thirard; editor: Bert Bates; music: Georges Auric; cast: Ingrid Bergman (Paula Tessier), Yves Montand (Roger Demarest), Anthony Perkins (Philip Van der Besh), Jessie Royce Landis (Mrs. Van der Besh), Uta Taeger (Gaby), Jackie Lane (First Maisie), Jean Clarke (Second Maisie), Pierre Dux (Maître Fleury), Diahann Carroll (Nightclub Performer); Runtime: 120; MPAA Rating: NR; producers; Arthur Krim/Anatole Litvak/Robert Benjamin: United Artists/MGM; 1961-B/W)
“Outdated but chic melodrama set in Paris, about an older French woman of 40 getting involved with a younger American man of 25.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The classy Ukraine-born American director Anatole Litvak (“Anastasia”/”The Snake Pit”) helms this outdated but chic melodrama set in Paris, about an older French woman of 40 getting involved with a younger American man of 25. The production values are high, the performance by Ingrid Bergman nails it as the older woman interior decorator feeling uneasy with her 5-year relationship with her philandering, suave businessman boyfriend Yves Montand and also with the advances of his rival, the neophyte lawyer Anthony Perkins (miscast, as he’s too creepy for even a vulnerable Ingrid to fall for), the love sick son of her wealthy American client (Jessie Royce Landis).
The French novel Aimez-vous Brahms? by Francoise Sagan was adapted for the screen by Samuel A. Taylor.
It’s a melancholy women’s pic that has some clunky lines Ingrid is forced to get through, as her romance with the smoothy Yves sours when he refuses to marry her despite being in love and lies to her about bedding down a much younger woman (Jackie Lane & Jean Clarke). Thereby Perkins uses the opportunity of the lovers falling out to manipulate his way into Ingrid’s life
The mostly tedious film is Ingrid’s picture. She’s worth seeing mostly to watch her downplay her good looks to do the role of the pitied aging woman.
REVIEWED ON 11/1/2021 GRADE: B-