Rent Is Paris Burning? (1966)

A superb 1966 long film, 2 hours 40 minutes about Paris liberation 1944, all star cast - Is Paris Burning? review by PV

I loved this. Yes, it is a long film at 2 hours 40 minutes BUT an hour before the end there is an INTERMISSION, or ' un pissoir break' for 2 minutes which is a first!

I HATE the dubbing though, really. No option to have the original French and German with subtitles though which is a real shame.

There is actual footage of the liberation mixed in with the fiction, and at the end of the black and white film we are treated to a full colour aerial tour of Paris which was almost blown up - they were Hitler;s orders, but the general in charge of Paris disobeyed them (he'd have a statue and a rue named after him were it not for the bad stuff he did in WWII too, in Ukraine and in Paris, sending resistance fighters to concentration camps Buchenwald which most did not survive).

I found it all fascinating. The 2014 film DIPLOMACY uses the same lines and often identical dramatic shots to this film, and is based on a play and this film, which is based on a book - a true account of what happened. hence the identical word-for-word lines.

Kirk Douglas as General Patton; Orson Welles as a Swedish diplomat (in real life he met the German general again in the mid 50s), the Bond Goldfinger actor Gert Frobe as the German general in charge; Psycho star Anthony Perkins, Bruno Cremer (Maigret in the 2001 drama series), Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Jean-Paul Belmondo, loads of talent here.

Such a film is due a remake really, though I dread to think what a woke agenda would do to it, colourblind casting etc, the usual demand for 50% female roles.

4 stars.