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Ken Russell had two false starts in the cinema. French Dressing is sublime but was a commercial failure so he retreated back to television. Later he directed a Michael Caine thriller. This was a commercial and artistic disaster and Ken was again out of cinema. Ken Russell's first cinema film French Dressing from 1963 is dismissed by everyone including Ken, but it is a minor classic. It is an innocent British story about a deck-chair attendant who arranges for a famous French film star to open the local film festival. But actually the plot is an excuse for a series of sketches centred around the hero and heroine, with a rite of passage for both before they realise their love is more powerful than their ambitions.
She is played by newcomer Alita Naughton who is seriously cute, wearing a sailors costume and looking like a female Tadzio from Death in Venice- "the carnival is fancy dress- come as a girl". The sailors costume frequently appears in Russell films. The film is black and white and has all of Ken Russell's eye for imagery. The editing and pace, and the good non-professional acting, are similar to Dick Lester's Beatles work. The film was scripted as a light comedy, and the set jokes don't work, but this gives the film a charm, as two innocents share the events that unfurl around them. John Baxter in An Appalling Talent makes comparisons
with Jean Vigo and Jacques Tati. Also on the commercial lack of
success says "French Dressing might have gained a moderate success had the
producers given it adequate distribution. Instead it is bundled out
largely without promotion, cut to an hour for double-billing in countries
like Australia, and in the USA never released at all. Russell rashly
attends the London critics' screen to answer questions- none are asked..." |
