Film Snail

Day for Night
Day for Night

7.8

Day for Night

PG·1973·116m

Summary

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Crew

Director, Screenplay

François Truffaut

Writer

Suzanne Schiffman

Writer

Jean-Louis Richard

Reviews

Geronimo1967

Geronimo1967

May 27, 2023

7

It's quite hard to succinctly review this Truffaut comedy - there is just so much going on. Essentially, Jacqueline Bisset ("Julie") is brought to Nice to star in a movie about a British woman who is married to a Frenchman. She comes to meet his family and promptly falls in love with her husband's father and so leaves him to shack up with his dad. It turns out, as the production progresses that the producer "Bertrand" (Jean Champion) and the director "Ferrand" (Truffaut himself) have to deal with an whole gamut of issues as the cast - all assembled in a small hotel - come with more baggage than the Queen Mary. "Julie" is recovering from a failed marriage and a nervous breakdown; "Séverine" (Valentina Cortese) is having an affair - but with a bottle, and Jean-Pierre Léaud steals the film as the petulant and high-maintenance "Alphonse". It reminded me a little of Fellini's "8½" from ten years earlier, another behind the scenes as a movie is made story - but it could hardly be more different. Here, the cast and the crew could not have been more dysfunctional - a trait of the creative, I believe - but in the end somehow or other there is a chance the film might actually get made! It is good fun, and the odd contribution from Jean-Pierre Aumont help keep this 2 hour extravaganza moving along entertainingly. Georges Delerue's jaunty score compliments the lovely open-ness of this production, and I really enjoyed this film.

Media

Status:

Released

Original Language:

French

Budget:

$700,000.00

Revenue:

$850,000.00

Keywords

lovesickness
insurance salesman
movie business
nice
alcoholic
extramarital affair
making of
film director