Une si jolie petite plage
Une si jolie petite plage English titles Such a Pretty Little Beach and Riptide is a French film shot in blackandwhite, directed by Yves Allgret and released in 1949. The film stars Grard Philipe, Madeleine Robinson and Jane Marken.
During the cold and rainy offseason a man Grard Philipe arrives in a seaside town and, giving his name only as Pierre, checks into the only hotel which remains open. His arrival arouses curiosity and a degree of suspicion, as people note that he appears to know the area, yet gives no explanation for his presence at that bleak time of year in the deadend town. The elderly father of the hotel owner, now a mute invalid, shows signs of recognition but his condition prevents him from voicing what he observes. Pierre is treated with barely disguised pettyminded intolerance and hostility by the hotel owner, guests and habitus, but develops a friendship with Marthe Madeleine Robinson, an allpurpose employee at the hotel. Pierre also notices a 15yearold boy employed as a dogsbody at the hotel, where he has been placed by the local staterun orphanage who he has spotted engaging in rendezvous with Mme Curlier, a middleaged female guest. His attempts to engage the somewhat surly and reticent youth however meet with rebuff.The arrival in the town of Fred Jean Servais, an oily and seedy character on Pierres trail, precipitates his fate. It transpires that Pierres interest in the orphan boy arises from the fact that he sees in him an exact reflection of himself at the same age Pierre too was raised in the same orphanage and was sent as a teenage boy to work in this hotel, where he was picked up by a predatory older woman, a wellknown chanteuse who offered him escape to the bright lights of Paris. Over time however, his gigolotype lifestyle with the woman became increasingly sordid and degrading. It is revealed that Pierre is now on the run, having just killed the singer, and has returned to the town of his childhood and adolescence in a vain attempt to try to find some inner peace. Instead his return has ended in complete desperation. Marthe, who by now has fallen in love with Pierre, does her best to help him through his despair, but it is not to be. ........
Source: Wikipedia
