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      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
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      • Incindies (2010)
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    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
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      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
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      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
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      • True Confession ('37)
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      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
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      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
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      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
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      • The Searchers ('56)
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        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
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      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
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      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
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      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
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      • Blood Simple ('84)
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The April Fools (1969)

The April Fools 

Directed By:  Stuart Rosenberg
Starring:  Jack Lemmon, Catherine Deneuve, Peter Lawford, Myrna Loy, Charles Boyer
Studio:  
IMDB Rating:  6

Thumbnail Review:
No one would confuse Ernst Lubitsch’s 1939 masterpiece Ninotchka with the 1969 comedy The April Fools starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve.  On the surface the 2 films have nothing in common.  Ninotchka is a farce with cutting social commentary about communism, consumerism and national identity, while April Fools, directed by Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke ’68), comments on the dichotomy between work and play and the urban rat race versus suburban boredom.  While Ninotchka’s tag line, “Garbo Laughs,” resonated around the world, based on Garbo’s string of 1930’s films that focused on triumph (Queen Christina) and tragedy (Camille), but seldom humor, it also bookended her 1931 speaking debut in Anna Christie (’31), which was promoted with “Garbo talks!”  In between, Garbo’s incredible beauty and often stoic performances allowed viewers to project their emotions onto her characters, giving them emotion depth beneath a placid exterior.  Deneuve’s work throughout the 1960’s was similar to Garbo’s ‘30’s films, but with more psycho-sexual overtones (Repulsion ‘65, Belle De Jour ‘67) and even her candy-coated work with Jacque Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg & The Young Girls of Rochefort) was overlayed with sadness and regret.  The April Fools was Deneuve’s first English language film and Rosenberg went out of his way to photograph her laughing and smiling, often in singular close ups and medium shots.  As if trying to penetrate Deneuve’s ‘ice queen’ personae, Rosenberg essentially inserts bemused reactions to the Jack Lemmon induced chaos around her.  Had The April Fools used the tagline “Deneuve laughs” nobody would have blinked an eye, but it really is a marked difference in performance style from her early work with directors Roman Polanski, Luis Bunuel, Francois Truffaut and others. 

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​Lemmon plays a haggard corporate climber, willing to forgo his personality to get ahead, while living an emotionless existence in suburban Connecticut, awash in dinner parties, cocktail parties and enough psychobabble to drown a cat, or the mangy dog who hates its owner. When he arrives at his boss’s swanky apartment in a Manhattan skyscraper, expecting a one-on-one meeting to secure his next promotion, he instead walks into a swinging party, complete with hipsters, posers and wannabes, each determined to ‘out-cool’ everyone else.  Lemmon’s Howard Brubaker is a fish out of water who floats through the party, finally paraphrasing his bosses come on line “I’m Brubaker, can I buy you a drink” to a pretty blonde at the bar.  She misinterprets his line, grabs her coat and they leave.  Of course, the blonde is Deneuve and what follows is a night shared where a tender relationship grows.  Sprinkled throughout are bizarre coincidences, including cameos by Myrna Loy & Charles Boyer, as wealthy eccentrics, she an amateur fortune teller & he a budding fencer. Perception versus reality links the couple as Brubaker attempts to seduce Catherine, only to recant several lies and reveal his truth as a sad and pathetic poser.  Catherine, who withholds her last name throughout (she’s the boss’s wife), initially is merely amused by Brubaker, but begins to see a kindred soul, everything her husband (Peter Lawford) is not.
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​If the first act is the party and the second act is the evening together, the third act devolves into full on farce as Brubaker attempts to reunite with Catherine, while dealing with the troubles of the New York to Connecticut commuter lifestyle. As noted, there is constant chaos around Brubaker, but Catherine is the sun around which to film revolves.  Yes, Deneuve laughs, but it is her quiet and controlled centering of the movie that makes the rest of it work.  While she is her typically reticent character, allowing actions, emotions and ideas to flow towards her, Deneuve instills in Catherine a warmth unlike many of her earlier work.  In her diaries she notes that “the film never really started for me” due to a certain discomfort with filming in America, she once again creates an emotional rich character by focusing on little gestures, line readings and stillness.  I think Deneuve’s ultimate talent is her ability to allow the viewer to watch her; no histrionics, no broad strokes or mugging, but simple refined elegance.
The April Fools is no Ninotchka, and very much a movie of its time, but Deneuve and Lemmon make an interesting couple, obviously mis-matched, but their contrasting styles draw out nuances of their abilities that are wholly enjoyable.  In this case, the princess and the frog are well matched.
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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
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      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
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      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven