jotix100 A small coastal town in Normandy is the setting for this story. We are taken to the last days of WWII as Allied air forces begin bombing the town. Albert Quentin, a local hotel owner has been drinking heavily with a buddy at the brothel. It becomes clear they must abandon the building if they want to save their lives. Quentin makes a promise if he will be spared of a death: he will stop drinking.Years go by and Quentin and his wife, Suzanne, are living and managing their hotel, Stella, located in the center of town. The city showed no signs of what the bombing it suffered. Gabriel Fouquet arrives one night and asks to be taken to a hotel. Most of the places are closed because of the winter season. The driver recommends him to go to the Stella. As Gabriel gets settled he wants to have a drink, but it is too late for that at the hotel.Gabriel is a man with a secret. His own daughter is studying at a local boarding school run by nuns. Gabriel and he girl has been estranged by some unknown reason that is not well explained. Eventually, Gabriel and Albert connect in surprising ways. They see in one another good nature as well as a friendship that comes from mutual understanding.Never having seen the film, we had a chance when it showed on a French channel. The film was directed by Henri Verneuil, an old timer in that country's cinema, closely associated with Jean Gabin, having worked with him in a number of pictures together. The screenplay is credited to Francois Bover and Michel Audiard, the father of director Jacques Audiard, in an adaptation of Antoine Blondin.The pairing of Jean Gabin and Jean-Paul Belmondo was a gamble for the creators of the film. They came from different styles of acting. Mr. Gabin was a superstar in his native country, having done excellent work throughout his career. Jean-Paul Belmondo, who was much younger, was a product of the recent New Wave, which Mr. Gabin detested because the chaotic style the new directors brought to the cinema. Evidently the stars show a rapport unimaginable, something that translated in a friendship off the camera as well.Suzanne Flon, a character actress, plays Suzanne Quentin. Louis Page, the director of photography captured the atmosphere of the little town of Normandy, even taking us to the beaches that saw the Allied invasion of France by the Allied forces.

Bob Taylor Albert Quentin (Gabin) is running a small hotel in a coastal town in Normandy. He and his wife (Suzanne Flon)have settled down to a dull, peaceful existence heading into old age, when Fouquet (Belmondo), a young man gifted in flamenco dancing and getting very drunk, erupts into their lives. Soon all is turned upside-down, the teetotalling Quentin starts drinking again, and the town is treated to the most spectacular impromptu fireworks display that I can recall seeing in a movie. And that's not all... The acting is good all round: Gabin and Belmondo play off each other very well, Suzanne Flon strikes the right wistful and optimistic notes, and Noel Roquevert is very funny as the owner of a boutique where you can buy just about anything, including fireworks. Gabrielle Dorziat (of Les Parents terribles) has a nice cameo as the director of a girl's school who insists on speaking English.Henri Verneuil was a very popular director from the 50's to the 70's; without being a real auteur he had a talent for pleasing the audience. Un singe en hiver follows Mélodie en sous-sol with its fine Gabin-Delon pairing, and gave me a lot of pleasure.

Cristi_Ciopron The good-looking Belmondo is a wonder in this fresh and lively movie:inventiveness, intoxication,agility,fearlessness, heartiness,fervency.He and Gabin give the action an almost dreamily dimension,when they kick up a row.They put to rout their fellow citizens with fireworks.The unflinching Gabin makes a rotund role,he acts GOOD-HUMOUREDLY, finely,unerringly.His character is a madcap fantasy man,a hot-spur.Belmondo is unequaled in providing cinematographic pleasure.And "Un Singe ..." offers copious Belmondo mastership.A provincial innkeeper is thrilled to find a mate in the fond of the bottle stranger who puts up at his inn.The stranger (Belmondo!) is merry , refined, nimble,spontaneous, youthful, suave.The two have an allied in the shopkeeper Landru,a quaint, twisted man who sells old things together with obsolete histories.Un singe en Hiver is a funny,light fantasy.The humor is mild and gentle.The characters are entirely fictitious,unrealistic.The situation is purely fanciful (otherwise,the plot is conventional,the poetry is cheap,gooey and low,the "wisdom" is fake).It shows what is hardening , narrow, smothering, stifling, in the provincial way of life,and also suggests an alternative.The movie lives by the performances given by Gabin and Belmondo.Belmondo is in fine fettle,unimaginably good in his role as a dreamy drunk and as a gourmet.He is as mad as a March hare.Un singe en Hiver is not great cinema,not a 10/10 movie;but it is entertaining and mild,jovial and nicely done.And,above all,it offers one of the great, unhesitating, fragrant,fulfilled,graceful, unexampled,frolicsome, freely done Belmondo roles.Nonetheless,I think the movie is a little overrated by some."Un Singe ..." is one of the few important shows about dreaminess (though not on the same level as "Barfly" and "Days of Wine and Roses " ).It gets a fairy-like,ONEIRICAL thrill,suave,tender,delicate.My favorite Belmondo shows are Pierrot Le Fou (1965) ,À bout De soufflé ,L' Homme De Rio,La Sirène Du Mississipi.

MarioB I have read a recent interview with Belmondo, saying that the veteran Jean Gabin hate all that new wave french cinema when he was asked to do this movie with young Belmondo, who was, at that time, an actor who was working with the New Wave directors (Godard, Chabrol, Truffaut). But a solid friendship was born when the two men work together on that movie. In fact, the respect and this friendship seems to be very easy to see when we look at this charming movie. It's full of a sense of poetry. It's a movie about friendship, dreams, nostalgia, sadness between two men from different generations. It's also a movie about alcool, in a sense that the beatniks of that era refers to. It's also very well written. Gabin and Belmondo gives a very warm performance. You must see this wonderful movie.