Film Chest announced this
past week that they are launching the Cinetrove International line of
Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack film restorations featuring internationally-acclaimed
films from around the world.
The rollout begins on Nov.
13 with the Blu-ray debut of director Marc Allégret's 1955 film adaptation of
the Vicki Baum novel Futures Vedettes (aka: School
for Love), starring Brigitte Bardot.
Roger Vadim, who had been
working with Allégret since the end of World War II as his assistant director
on a number of projects, adapted the script (with Allégret), which was a
post-World War I novel written by Baum (a prolific writer whose novel,
“Menschen im Hotel” was adapted for the screen in 1932 as Grand Hotel — winning the
Oscar for Best Picture).
He updated the setting to
a more contemporary period and the key role of Sophie went to none other than
his wife, Brigitte Bardot, to whom he was married at the time.
The story revolves around
an instructor at a prestigious performing arts conservatoire by the name of Maestro
Eric Walter (Jean Marais — Beauty and the Beast, Orpheus), who
is married to a famous opera star (Denise Noël) … who is often on the road! This leaves him at the mercy of the
flirtatious students, particularly Sophie (Bardot) and Elis (Isabelle Pia) and
in no time he is drawn into an affair with complications and consequences.
This film is one of
Bardot’s early roles — she would soon become an international star (thanks in
no small measure to Vadim’s 1956 hit, And God Created Woman). Vadim, of course, would go onto numerous
marriages (Jane Fonda among them) and become a world-renowned director in his
own right. Sadly, Allégret, despite his
decades-long filmmaking career — and discoverer of many acting talents over the
years — would be swept away by the arrival of the French New Wave.
This newly restored
presentation of Futures Vedettes makes its debut on Blu-ray and features an
extensive photo gallery and the featurette titled, “Brigitte Bardot: A Legend
from the '50s.” The film is presented in
French with English subtitles.
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