Claude Autant-Lara - Le Diable au corps aka Devil in the Flesh (1947)

During World War I, underage student Francois Jaubert meets and falls in love with Marthe Grangier, who is engaged to Jacques, a soldier at the Front. Though Francois pursues her ardently, they become separated and she marries Jacques. But when Marthe and Francois meet again, their mutual feelings prove stronger than ever, and they begin an extramarital affair...regardless of potentially tragic consequences.







An extraordinarily frank and understanding contemplation of a tragic love affair between a 17-year-old French schoolboy and the wife of a soldier during the first World War is beautifully and tenderly accomplished in a most formidable new French film, "Devil in the Flesh," which was presented at the Paris Theatre last night.
Already celebrated by the controversies it has aroused on the Continent, where it was presented under the title "Le Diable au Corps," and also by some slight embarrassment in its admission to the United States, this film is plainly one for starting impassioned discussion, pro and con. And its merits will likely be debated on other than artistic grounds. For not only does it have forebearance for the youthful principals in an adulterous romance but it lays bare the merciless irony in certain conventional attitudes.
Based on a brilliant novel of Raymond Radiguet, who died at the age of 20 shortly after writing this frankly autobiographical tale, "Devil in the Flesh" explores the raptures and the torments of a sensitive boy and girl whose lives are confused and prostrated by the social abnormalities of war. And, in their deep emotional turmoil, it vainly seeks to find some basic rationalization of the weakness and inhumanity of man.
Told in the form of a flashback from Armistice Day, 1918, with the youth in the case gazing gravely into a mirror in a deserted room, the story unfolds the tragic romance of this lad with a 20-yearold girl whom he first meets while helping wounded soldiers into a hospital where she works. It tells of their first warm attraction, their excitement at finding youthful love and their confusion and despair at a separation, which leads to the girl's marrying a soldier fiancé.
And then the great torture of their romance is recounted as their meetings are resumed after the soldier's departure, when passion takes over their love and the bliss of their personal fulfillment is darkened by conscience and responsibility. Lost in the grip of natural impulse and the tearing grasp of their baffled loyalties, their happiness turns to bitter torment and their hopeless romance is brought to a shattering end.
Certainly, Radiguet's novel told this story with power and subtlety, and the film which has been made from it lacks nothing of those major qualities. For the screen play by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost is a beautifully organized thing, with an orchestration of the visual that literally scores and iterates the melding themes. The romance is developed in cycles, with images designed to correspond and contrast in bringing out the shifting of impulse and decision between the two.
And Claude Autant Lara has directed a magnificently talented cast to achieve the maximum of poignance and clarity in this mordant tale. In Gerard Philipe, who plays the schoolboy, he had a most apt and eloquent actor, indeed, for Philipe is not only brilliant as a performer but has a hauntingly tragic face. And his consequent expositions of the moods and vagaries of the boy, his burning passions and frightening indecisions, are enhanced by his fine facial expressiveness.
In Micheline Presle, playing the woman, he had a beautiful and sensitive performer, too—a youthful, full-bodied little creature with remarkably tender mouth and eyes. And through Denise Grey, as the latter's mother, he got a rare picture of maternal anxiety, caution and discipline, matched by the moving indication of a father's solicitude which Debucourt gives.
Produced by Paul Graetz, this picture is perhaps the finest, most mature from post-war France, and its admission for exhibition by our assorted censors is a triumph to be hailed. (Bosley Crowther, NYT, 1949)









El diablo en el cuerpo
Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, el estudiante menor de edad Francois Jaubert conoce y se enamora de Marthe Grangier, quien está comprometida con Jacques, un soldado en el frente. Aunque Francois la persigue con ardor, se separan y ella se casa con Jacques. Sin embargo, cuando Marthe y Francois se encuentran de nuevo, su pasión mutua resulta más fuerte que nunca, y comienzan una relación extramatrimonial... sin importarles las consecuencias.







C’est en 1917 que les deux protagonistes se rencontrent. Marthe Grangier, infirmière aux faibles convictions, est fiancée à un soldat sur le front. François Jaubert, 17 ans, est encore lycéen. Dès les premiers instants, il s’éprend d’elle. Tous deux vont sans retenue se lancer dans une liaison passionnelle… au risque de tout perdre.






5D