The Diary of a Chambermaid

source: The Diary of a Chambermaid

The Diary of a Chambermaid

I have seen a french movie "Journal d'une Femme de chambre" by Luis Bunuel...It seems that Remoir just regurgitated this movie...I saw "La Règle du Jeu"...and was not at all impressed...Renoir is very over-rated...In fact Bunuel's movie has same plot...beautiful chambermaid goes to country and everybody is impressed by her charm...his master tries to seduce her...the neighbor flirts with her...the head-servant likes her but ridicules her all the time...we see the movie through her eyes...she does seduce somebody but thats not for money...in a sense that seduction is for greater good...furthermore Bunuel's movie has a very strong political message apart from being a commentary on french bourgeois habitudes...It is very powerful extreme left propaganda movie...Jeanne Moreau of course is subliminal as usual... Renoir sucks...

The first of the three talkie films of this story is based on the play Le journal d'une femme de Chambre, which is in turn based on the 1900 book of the same name. This is the only American version and my least favorite. Even so I like it. As dated as it is there is still plenty about this production that is absorbing. Paulette Goddard plays a gorgeous chambermaid who leaves Paris to work on an estate in small-village fin de siécle France. Everybody falls for her but her hard boss, the woman who owns the estate and runs it with an iron fist. She may not fall for the beauty, but she recognizes that her son probably will and uses her to try and keep him home. It doesn't work and instead Celestine, our darling heroine, destroys madame boss's world.

As Paulette Goddard plies her "magic," things don't always go as planned. She is a gold digger and doesn't hesitate to settle for less attractive if there is money on the way. What happens is a series of abutments that hold up the process. For me the charm of he movie was the use of some great character actors. A young Burgess Meredith and Irene Ryan. It's one of those films that is ultimately forgettable but has some nice moments.

It has a touch that seems like the actors are fooling around. Total, not seriously, that's all. Especially towards the end. At first it is fine but it is losing bellows and as is customary in Renoir, it mixes the genres in such a way that it does not make any sense. Spoiler: I do not know if it has ulterior motives although it seems to me that yes and I do not like anything, I speak of incest. It is clear that horns are spoken. The neighbor, is not that character unbearable? Always jumping. Why does Paulette want to go with Francis? That man is scary. He has not felt anything for him in the whole movie. For money? But he has the son and on top he gets along with him. The ending, it seemed a bad movie of laughter, could not believe that it had degenerated so much the film. I will not go into technical sections. Or I like none. In the end I did not know if they were laughing at me or what

Some slapstick is afoot as sexy maid Celestine (Paulette Goddard) comes to work for a rich couple in the French countryside. I've never read the novel on which "The Diary of a Chambermaid" is based, nor seen the later movie version of it, but Jean Renoir's version is a treat. The movie starts out presenting itself as though Celestine is going to spend the whole time seducing men, but it turns out that she's got something else in store. And so does her neighbor (Burgess Meredith). It's not any kind of masterpiece, but still a fun look at the French class system of the 1880s, as well as topics such as womanizing. The only other Renoir movie that I've seen is "The Grand Illusion", but these two have convinced me that he was one fine director. The rest of the cast includes Judith Anderson (Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca") and Irene Ryan (Granny on "The Beverly Hillbillies").