IF YOU WENT GA GA FOR 'LA LA'......DANCE YOUR WAY INTO "THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT"

THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT (1967) which has long been one of BQ's favorite Guilty Pleasures, is the one to seek out if you're still happily humming to yourself after taking in a "La La Land" viewing.....

            The movie broke into its songs and dances three years after French director Jacques Demy's previous all-singing romance "The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg" broke everybody's hearts. Once again teaming with composer Michel Legrand, Demy set out to make a way more ambitious homage to Hollywood musicals......the movie teems with spinning swirling dancers, coloring book cinematography, non stop singing, and  multiple up and down romances which you know will end well. And Demy's serious about this homage business, including appearances by 'West Side Story' s George Chakiris and the immortal Gene Kelly.

             Knocked out by "La La Land"s opening LA freeway dance-a-thon? Then you'll also smile  broadly at "Rochefort"s opening number, with Chakiris and an ebullient platoon of fresh faced young dancers nimbly prancing through what looks like Jerome Robbins-lite choreography on a combination ferry/bridge as it moves across the water. They're all headed to the sunny seaside town of Rochefort ( brightly repainted by the film's art director), the home of music and dance teacher sisters. (played by real life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac), Befitting a true musical, everyone's lookin' for love and singing their adorable little hearts out about it. (You'll have to read the English lyrics in the subtitles......supposedly an English version of the film exists somewhere, but we've never come across it.)

             Legrand's non-stop score seems( to us, anyway) to have served as the prime inspiration for Justin Hurwitz's "La La Land" music.....a bubbly pop/jazz/broadway mixture that's not particularly memorable, with the exception of the opening number.... but the perpetual tunes carry you away with their lighter than air insistent optimism.

            By the time "Young Girls Of Rochefort" arrived Stateside in 1968, Hollywood studios had practically bankrupted themselves making bloated.outdated 3 hour musicals, most of them featuring big stars who could neither sing or dance. Funny thing is, almost nobody in "Rochefort" does their own singing either, but Demy's cotton candy camera work and his breezy light directorial touch schooled those tar-pit bound Hollywood atrocities on how to do it right.  So Beached Quill easily sings out 4 stars **** for this Gallic gallop through old MGM fantasy-land.  Don't miss it if you're still enveloped  in the euphoric cloud cast by "La La Land".