Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Although director Robert Wise makes striking use of standing sets from RKO's Hunchback of Notre Dame to give us memorable images of the coach in the town, the lackluster studio scenes inside the coach, plus a disappointing performance from Simone Simon who plays with little of her usual fire and vigor; plus the very second-string support cast led by John Emery, Kurt Kreuger, Alan Napier, Helen Freeman and Jason Robards, Senior – hardly players that would induce even a mild stampede at the box-office; plus a screenplay that is not only far too talky but far too obviously is bending over backwards to make patriotic parallels; plus Robert Wise's disappointingly bland direction; plus niggardly production values. In all, a very disappointing movie from the Val Lewton unit, well below the producer's usual high standard on all counts, including script, direction, cast, and writing. Screenwriter Peter Ruric could do much better than this, e.g. "The Black Cat" and "Grand Central Murder".

There isn't too terribly much that I could add that hasn't already been said.However, to add on something for one of Profesor Lisistwitz's observations-yes the heroines in both stories were prostitutes but, given the state of the censorship codes at that time, their true profession(by the way, the world's oldest) wouldn't have been acceptable. In addition, most of the other critics have quite perceptively noticed and mentioned that the screenplay is based on two of Guy De Mauppassant' short stories, which have been quite cleverly put together.And this IS the genius of the scriptwriters.The humiliated girl in "Ball of Fat" come back to retaliate against the villain who humiliated her in the beginning.Well done!

Mademoiselle Fifi (1944) ** (out of 4) Val Lewton produced drama about a French laundress (Simone Simon) who boards a coach with several higher up French folks and soon teaches them how to be nice to one another even though war is coming. This film is about as hokey as any movie I've ever witnessed. I still get a chuckle out of producer Lewton who looked down on having to make horror films or work with Boris Karloff yet he seemed fine with a film like this. The low budget certainly doesn't help things but most of the movie takes place inside the stagecoach or within a small room. Wise's direction handles the material pretty well but there's simply not too much here to work with. The performances are mainly so-so but Simon, the beauty she is, can't do much. Her performance here is pretty bad and at times laughable due to her voice, which sounded really bad here. I've never been a big fan of hers but this is certainly the worst thing I've seen her do.

This is a very interesting film directed by a very famous Hollywood Director, Robert Wise,"The Sound of Music","West Side Story" and many other famous films. This is a gem of a 1944 film starring Simone Simon, (Elizabeth Bousset),"The Curse of the Cat People" who plays the role of a young French Laundress who shares a coach ride during the Franco-Prussian War with some very important social superiors. These so called social superiors thought themselves better than Elizabeth, however, when they forgot to bring any food supplies on their journey, she furnished them with chicken she had prepared for herself and things changed. Kurt Kreuger, (Lt. Von Eyrick) is a Prussian soldier who tries to hit on Elizabeth and stops all the travelers from going on their journey until poor Elizabeth complies with his wishes. Jason Roboards,Sr., (Wholesaler in Wines) gave a great supporting role along with John Emery, (Jean Cornudet) who comes to the aid of Elizabeth along with a Priest who will not ring the church bells of his Parish in defiance of the Prussian Generals. Great Classic Film.