The Good Girls (1960)

Excellent but underrated film

As Good As It Gets

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The other reviewers cover this film perfectly--particularly the one by DuMonteil. So will just add things that occurred to me.This film follows the lives of 4 Parisian shop-girls: one wants love one wants money etc...One problem with this film is there are too many shop-girls to follow. And a couple of them look just alike. The story line skits around and all this confuses you.It also tries to be funny and isn't--goofy zany and bizarre yes done pretty well but this isn't hard to do. The scene in the restaurant with the motorcycle rider hitting his head on the table went on far too long. Also it took me quite some time to convince myself of what happened at the end.I also like watching these to see the street scenes and cars from the era of my childhood. Recommend ?--probably not unless you are like me and like looking at the Deux Chevauxs and Panhards etc...

I own this DVD and have seen it many times. Fitting for its genre, it is intense, dark, sensual, and poetic. It's like riding in a car that you know is going dangerously fast but you're enjoying it too much to ask the driver to slow down. Although the storyline is quite simple, indeed not much happens to the girls before the ending climax, their fervor and hunger for life is palpable. It is the mood more than the events in the film that make its strong impact. Jane is mesmerizing, charming and complex, at different times a little girl, a rebellious teenager, or a flirtatious temptress. On the opposite side, Jaqueline is an utter mystery, implying a nature both extremely intelligent and extremely troubled. The men in the film are basically facades, people there to react to the girls, or to lead them into situations where they must react, or ***spoiler coming*** claim them as their victim. But even in the case of the murder, it is less about the killer and more about Jaqueline allowing herself to be taken by him emotionally, and what came to her as a result. Les Bonnes Femmes is a story open to much interpretation, rich with clues and artistic integrity.

Chabrol,although labeled "Nouvelle Vague" has never forgotten to tell a story.It has made him the heir of a long tradition of the psychological French thriller (Clouzot,Duvivier,Decoin).Even his earlier efforts ("Le Beau Serge" "A Double Tour" "Les Cousins" ) had painstaking well-constructed screenplays .But "Les Bonnes Femmes " gives way beneath the weaknesses of the Nouvelle Vague and succumbs to their vices:a vague story,ponderous jokes,mediocre performances (mainly the male ones)and a lot of padding.At a pinch,one can save Clotilde Joano's character and the terrible fate which lays in store for her.But the main reason why you would watch this non-Chabrolesque film is Stephane Audran's presence: she would be his star when he peaked in the 1968-1973 years.The films he made then were his very own and had nothing to do with the N.V. fortunately.

Chabrol's career is often seen as moving from the naturalism of his early films to the extreme stylisation of his great mid-period. It's not as simple as that, but in 'Les Bonnes Femmes', Chabrol achieves a balance between the two that he has rarely equalled. The story of four shopgirls, their work and social lives, has all the plotless and poignant banality of realism, while the closing third, with its move from Paris to the country, its seducer-cum-motorbike-riding-devil (reg. no.: 666) talking about the Creator, as little schoolboys called Balthasar pass by; and its closing vision of Hell/Purgatory bespeak a more Cocteau-like world of mythology and religion. But there is Cocteau too in the framing of Jacqueline in the shop window, while Chabrol's filming of treacherous nature later on is uncommonly vivid. Although 'Bonnes' is his least typical film, it is also his most lovable, and seems to get richer with the years.