Fanny (1961/2008)
Starring: Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Charles Boyer, Horst Buchholz
Director: Josh Logan
Studio: Westchester Films/Image Entertainment ID4310WCDVD
Video: 1.85:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 color
Audio: DD 5.1, 2.0 mono
Extras: separate CD of Music from the Soundtrack by Harold Rome. Conducted by Morris Stoloff, 32:42
Length: 134 minutes
Rating: *****
Have to admit the extra star is because I was just as entranced in my youth with Leslie Caron as Audrey Hepburn, and director Josh Logan (South Pacific, Camelot) displays her to full advantage in her closeups here. This is one of the delightful love stories of the silver screen, with a lovely score by Harold Rome – which is basically just one beautiful tune repeated endlessly but not the least bit annoying. Set in Marseilles – and making the crime-ridden seaport city absolutely captivating – the film is a rather stagey Hollywood version of a French film by a director more used to doing musicals. It’s the conclusion of a three-part Marseilles Trilogy by Marcel Pagnol, which had been a popular Broadway musical in the 1950s. The stylized French accents of both Chevalier and Boyer are still enjoyable and Caron is totally adorable. The production was nominated for five Oscars, but is mostly forgotten today – more’s the pity.
The young man love-object of Fanny (a German actor, Horst Buchholz) is torn between his goal of a life of adventure on the seven seas and his love for Fanny. He decides on the sea – partly because Fanny really wants him to do what will make him happy – and sails off; Fanny marries the aged sail-maker Pannis and brings the child of her assignation with Marius into the world legally. It’s clearly French in Pannis’ deathbed revelation that since Fanny wasn’t very passionate he had a side relationship with one of his employees. All comes to a happy/sad ending, as if you hadn’t guessed. Leslie Caron didn’t even dance at her wedding, but she danced her way into my heart.
Fine transfer, gorgeous scenes of Marseilles, not any noticeable surround on the 5.1 mix.
– John Sunier
