The greatest movie ever!

Absolutely brilliant

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

First, the setting: how did Clement manage to re-create so well the surroundings of 1850s working class Paris? Then the costumes: faultless! The dialogue: painfully realistic. Gervaise's lover and her husband are portrayed as attractive men lacking will-power, although they are fairly decent to poor, limping Gervaise with the pretty face and indulgent manner. They actually take a liking to each other and live together with her, both scrounging off her laundry business that a third man donated to her.Another commentator pointed out the murderous urban working hours, more than 15 hours a day for most, and pay was just sufficient to survive. There was no welfare, no pension, no nothing. This was the workaday world against which Gervaise rebelled, determined to acquire her own laundry business. Of course, the useless men managed to wreck everything for her. It's a wrenching drama, with the inexorable sad ending. Extraordinary that only 10 people have managed to view it and comment upon it.

The climactic scene of this movie is comparable to the straitjacket scene in Blake Edwards' "Days of Wine and Roses" in that after viewing these films back to back one might be tempted to cut down one's beer consumption for that day....the difference being Jack Lemmon suffers alone, whereas Francois Perier brings his wife's fragile world crashing down with him....it would be hard to judge which scenario is more devastating. Both men give towering performances..."Gervaise" tops "Wine" in its mise en scene, an unequalled view of late 19th century French provincial squalor. The production design here is beyond praise...I was surprised to find myself somewhat shocked at the domestic arrangements that Maria Schell's character endured, even at this permissive date...Zola's portrayal of domestic scandal does not date....some "arrangements" are just a bad idea, no matter what century you live in.

François Perier as the alcoholic Henri Coupeau is unsurpassed as sick man having his overdose and delirium by alcohol. Maria Shell as Gervaise is convincing as the poor woman working day and night for the drunken men she is having in her home and her little daughter! This movie should be shown to all people having drinking problems. As it is set in a different period (the end of the second Emperor Napoleon's reign) is has something universal. The general atmosphere of this epoch is however very accurate.

This is one of the best movie I've ever seen. Maria Schell is beautiful and hearthbreaking.I am not surprised it won the best foreign film of 1956. Suzy Delair is terrific and Francois Perier is superb. I will never forget this movie. It touched me deeply.