French Without Tears (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Oct 21, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Anthony AsquithRelease Date(s)
1939 (September 23, 2025)Studio(s)
Two Cities Films/Paramount Pictures (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
A generally good romantic farce adapted from Terence Rattigan’s 1936 play, French Without Tears (1939, U.S. release 1940) was, essentially, a British production financed by Paramount Pictures, using funds tied up in Britain. The cast is a pleasing jumble of Hollywood, British, and French talent, while behind the scenes is a British crew, including the film’s editor, one David Lean.
Kino’s release is a bit curious. In Britain the film had a running time of 86 minutes, but this, apparently, is the severely cut-down U.S. release version, presumably released by Paramount as a second feature and running a scant 67 minutes. Is the longer, complete version lost? Shorn of nearly 20 minutes, it’s a bit difficult to accurately assess; one can see the talented hand of David Lean, already by 1939 Britain’s top film editor, with innovative cutting of a few scenes, but in other respects it’s impossible to tell for sure which cuts are his and what was chopped out for the American release.
In any case, the simple plot can’t quite hide its theatrical origins—90% of it takes place in or just outside a French language school in France for English clientele. Following its catchy main title tune Ray Milland stars, in the role originated on the stage by Rex Harrison (his first great success). Milland plays Alan Howard, whose classmates include Chris Neilan (David Tree), Brian Curtis (Guy Middleton), and young Kenneth Lake (Kenneth Morgan), none terribly studious, which irritates their long-suffering teacher, Professor Maingot (Jim Gérald) and his assistant-daughter, Jacqueline (Janine Darcey), who’s in love with Chris.
Kenneth’s sister, Diana (Ellen Drew) comes for a visit, and immediately all the men save for Alan begin clamoring for her attentions, she selfishly content to play one suitor off the other. Eventually it comes down to a contest between Chris and a new student, middle-aged Naval Commander Bill Rogers (Roland Culver), Alan observing his classmates’ collective foolishness with a combination of amusement and mild disgust at Diana’s obvious manipulations of the lovesick men.
The picture is moderately amusing, though not much more than that. Discovered by actor William Demarest, Ellen Drew was a busy Paramount contract player during this time, best remembered for co-starring in Preston Sturges’s charming Christmas in July, and later for appearing in the Val Lewton-produced Isle of the Dead over at RKO. David Tree’s promising career was cut short by the war; soon after this, in service he lost his left hand due to a faulty grenade; that effectively ended his movie career, but he became a successful gentleman farmer thereafter.
Guy Middleton, as he does in French Without Tears, seemed to specialize in the kinds of roles played a generation later by Leslie Phillips and Terry-Thomas. Roland Culver was usually typecast playing emotionally aloof authority figures, like the cranky Home Secretary in Thunderball. His bemused reactions to Ellen Drew’s flirtations are, in many respects, a highlight of French Without Tears. He was quite good playing stuffed-shirt types not in on the joke.
Both Jim Gérald and Janine Darcey had long careers, his stretching from the silent era to the late-1950s, mostly in French films, but also Hollywood pictures shot in Europe and the occasional British film, including John Huston’s Moulin Rouge and Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa, though his parts were rarely large. Darcey’s likewise long run in films began in the mid-1930s and continued into at least 1994. She was in some big movies, like Rififi and The Phantom of Liberty but, like Gérald, rarely in sizable roles.
Kino’s Blu-ray of French Without Tears, in black-and-white and 1.37:1 standard screen size, looks just okay. The title elements are rather haggard, and the main feature is mostly fine, though by all appearances this is one title that has seen better days, and current owners Universal struggled with coming up with a presentable video transfer. Still, for such an obscure, largely forgotten title, it’s not bad. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0) mono is acceptable, with optional English subtitles, and the disc is Region “A” encoded.
The lone extra is a new audio commentary by film historian/screenwriter Gary Gerani.
Reasonably funny, worthwhile for its cast, headlined by Ray Milland and Ellen Drew but more interesting for its supporting players, French Without Tears is recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV