Happy 2025! The new year always always starts at JazzWax with the film The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), directed by Jacques Demy. The music was composed by Michel Legrand with lyrics by Demy, and the choreography was by Norman Maen. It was a musical followup to Demy and Legrand's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and, as with Umbrellas, all the dialogue is sung instead of spoken. Few color films ooze happiness and optimism like this one.
The musical film takes place in Rochefort, an actual town along the west coast of France. During the summer of 1966, a caravan of trucks arrives in the town square to set up a music and dance festival that will last the weekend. Local talent is included. Much happens over the next two days concerning song, dance and love. [Photo still above, from left, of Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac]
The film stars Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac (the actress-model and Deneuve's older sister), George Chakiris (of West Side Story fame), Michel Piccoli, Jacques Perrin (the sailor), Grover Dalem, Geneviève Thénier and Gene Kelly. [Photo still above, from left, of Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac]
The film has a bit of a cult following (I count myself among those intoxicated by the music and spirit). The most famous Legrand song from the film is Chanson de Maxence, which became better known as You Must Believe in Spring after Marilyn and Alan Bergman wrote English lyrics. [Photo still above, from left, of Françoise Dorléac and Catherine Deneuve].
The proprietor of the cafe in the square (and mother of the sisters in the film played by Deneuve and Dorléac ) was played by Danielle Darrieux (above), who had one of the longest careers in French film history, appearing in 110 movies over eight decades. She died in 2017. In The Young Girls of Rochefort, her role was the only one in which a principal actor in any of Demy's film-musicals sang his or her own musical part.
All the other actors had a separate person dub their singing parts. Darrieux was a concert singer in the 1960s. Also, an English language dub of the film was made for the American market, though it thoroughly lacks the essential French charm.
Watch The Young Girls of Rochefort for free at Max (HBO) here.
To get you in the mood, here's a clip from the film...
Stop! After you watch the film (and don't click on the following links until you've done so), I have a bunch of behind-the-scenes documentaries for you:
Go here...
Go here...
And here...
Footnote: Three months after The Young Girls of Rochefort was released in March 1967, Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's older sister by a year, was killed in a horrific car crash. Dorléac lost control of her rented Renault 10 and hit a signpost six miles from Nice, France, at the Villeneuve-Loubet exit of the La Provençale highway.
After hitting the post, the car flipped over in a field and burst into flames. Dorléac had been rushing to catch a flight at the Nice Airport after vacationing with Deneuve in Saint-Tropez. She was 25. [Photo above of a 1966 Renault 10]
And finally, listen to the entire French soundtrack (with ads) by going here.
