Dir: Abel Gance | Cast: Pierre Mondy, Claudia Cardinale, Leslie Caron, Vittorio De Sica | 1960 164’
Reviewed by Richard Chatten
Gance’s return to the subject of his greatest success Napoleon (1927) was this all-star pageant concentrating upon his career as emperor that seldom leaves the studio but manages to looks good due to Henri Alekan’s Eastmancolor photography and especially when Martine Carol and Leslie Caron are onscreen.
Enhanced by the cream of French acting talent from veteran Michel Simon to new boy Jean-Louis Trintignant with cameos from Jacques Palance as a general so lacking in originality he takes quiet pride in his battle plans recreating great manoeuvres of the past and Orson Welles as the inventor of the submarine. Although the Gance of yore would probably of omitted the jokes about Napoleon’s sensitivity about his height.
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