The Mischief Makers (1957)

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Les Mistons displays Francois Truffaut's special gifts as a filmmaker in a nice shot of 18 minutes in Les Mistons, as he works with children, and a love story with the young. While the story is simple- five kids who've barely had their voices crack follow a young woman, Bernadette, who becomes their envy when she's dating Gerard- the execution is quite intelligent and involving. Before the 400 Blows and Breathless knocked around the streets of Paris for locations, Les Mistons shows their characters all over the place, in the woods, in the streets, on bridges, and even inside a rustic looking stadium of shorts (I loved these scenes, with their high angles and timing). And the children have a very, very realistic feeling to them, as this is indeed what kids their age do, if they have no technology or attention span. There's even a small kind of Cocteau quality to some of their scenes, like when they are play-firing guns at each other, or hatching their 'vicious' games against the love-birds.It also helps a good deal that the actress playing Bernadette is incredibly pretty, practically without trying, though it's not to say that Truffaut doesn't get some quixotic shots of her playing tennis or riding her bike. But it is without some doubt that the story will end with some tragedy, or at least some revelation of this double-sided way about youth, both for the invigorated like the kids or for the seemingly life-long blissful partners of Bernadette and Gerard. It contains the light quality of all of Truffaut's films, and while there isn't enough time to really get to know these kids or Bernadette (though for the latter it's better to have the mysterious, almost no-dialog quality about her), it works wonderfully- one of my favorite short films.

While some on IMDb scored this short film higher, I find it really hard to give it a score one way or the other since Les Mistons is only 17 minutes long. It's sort of an experimental film due to its length and it's about as long as the average 3 Stooges short (this is NOT meant as a criticism--just a statement about the length of the film). What I saw, I really liked. It's a real shame that Trufaut never expanded this movie or created more episodes on "The Brats" ("Mistons" in French)--I could see several vignettes like this going to create a nice film.I assume if the viewer has no idea who Truffaut is or had no idea it was one of his films wouldn't think too much about it. It's a slight little film. Enjoyable, but not a "must see".

A group of boys adore a young lady who cycles around the area in loose skirts. Being too young to love her they decide to hate her and make her break up with her boyfriend. They follow her around and usually wind up watching the couple as they play tennis.An early short from Truffaut, this is a bittersweet tale that is less structured than experienced. The film is essentially about a group of boys who tease a young woman because they don't know any other way of expressing their lust for her. It is a little heavy on noise and action but it is still good at heart. I would have liked a little bit more in the way of character rather than the slightly pretentious (French!) dialogue that was delivered - it didn't do enough to help me inside the characters or their feelings, but I suppose I had enough to be able to work it out for myself.The film is visually quite stylish and reasonably well directed; although some of the shots will appear quite clichéd now (girl on bike etc) but it is still effective. If anything the lack of dialogue was made worse by the noisy shouting etc that dominated the film; I would have preferred it to be a bit more controlled as I found the noise grating and made it difficult to concentrate. The cast are mainly young children but the woman in the central role manages to appear alluring and `normal' at the same time.Overall, this film has meaning and is enjoyable and interesting, but it hurts itself in some regards. It is worth seeing if you have more than a passing interest in Truffaut but it is overlong for it's material, dragging some scenes too long and lacks a stronger narrative.

I first saw this film while taking a class in European Cinema when I was in film school. It's a charming story about a group of young boys in a small French city, their ages ranging from nine to fourteen- just about the time that boys begin to notice girls, particularly the older ones. The film follows the boys for their summer while they, in turn, follow around a pretty young lady whom they all have crushes on. It isn't until the end of the film, when her boyfriend returns home that they see her as something less than a goddess, but still something more than human. The film has a number of memorable scenes, but the most memorable one is when the boys follow her as she rides her bicycle to a nearby lake. She parks the bicycle near some trees, and goes down to the lake for a swim. Instead of the expected action, which would be to hide in the bushes and watch as she swims, the boys do something much more enterprising and considerably more satisfying- they line up, and one by one, bow their faces to the bicycle's seat and take a long, luxuriant SMELL of the seat that the girl (In a skirt) was just sitting on! Classic Turffaut, definitely worth watching if you can find it.