A Time for Loving

A Time for Loving is from an original screenplay by the French playwright Jean Anouilh, commissioned by the producer Anatole de Grunwald before he died in 1967, which was finally produced by his younger brother Dimitri de Grunwald with Christopher Miles directing in 1970. It is a bitter-sweet nostalgic look at Paris just before and during the second World War as seen by three couples, who over the years rent the same artist's studio in Montmartre.^[1][2]

Plot

At the same time as an English man, Geoff arranges a rendezvous with his first love, Patricia, to recapture their first affair in a Montmartre studio, the son of the concierge persuades his first love Simone to climb up to the same studio bedroom window thinking it would be empty for the night. Meanwhile, Geoff finds Patricia has grown bitter over the years, and that the warmth has gone from their relationship, but when they disturb the two young lovers in the bedroom, the evening ends in a humorous and more light-hearted manner, as they are forced to crawl under the concierge's door in order to leave unseen.

Running late to school the concierge's son sees a young American girl, who is studying at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly, and who is having an affair with an older doctor. Not only must they keep the affair secret from the concierge, but also from the disapproving general public by having to meet in shady ‘hôtels de passe’. However an escape to the seaside in Normandy brings matters to a head between them, as the second world war begins.

In occupied Paris, Marcel, the managing director of an important cement business, arrives at the studio which he is renting for his mistress Josette, and bumps into a German Oberleutnant on the landing. As it is Christmas Eve, old enmities are put aside, but Marcel has to get his other Christmas presents home to his wife Hélioise and also to his mother, who lives the other side of Paris. All of whom offer Marcel the customary Christmas French dish of oysters, which are also given to him by his mistress for her party, along with her music teacher and her student Monsieur Grondin.

The only form of transport in Paris during those war years were velo-taxis, a type of bicycle rickshaws, which are unable to get the overweight Marcel to all of his women in time for their oyster dinners. These he has to consume in a hurry, one after the other, in order to be on time, albeit a bit green around the gills, for a secret meeting with the French Resistance. After the war all three men are reunited in the old studio.^[3]

Cast

Production

After the success of The Virgin and the Gypsy, Dimitri de Grunwald, who had arranged the finance through his European Consortium, teamed up with Christopher Miles again, who in gratitude agreed to direct ‘A Time for Loving’ as long as a meeting could be arranged with Jean Anouilh to discuss the screenplay. This de Grunwald arranged in the Hotel Provençal in the South of France near where Anouilh lived.^[4]

This 1930s hotel, in which the bar hosted

In fact Anouilh did help later with some rewriting by improving the interlocking dialogue for some of the sequences, which were needed in a hurry as shooting was to begin in Paris on Pont Alexandre III which had to be closed to the public for filming on 4 August 1970, a studio built on an existing house in Rue Berthe, Montmartre, as well as its interiors to be designed and built by Theo Meurisse at the Studio Boulogne, all to be co- ordinated by Miles’ friend from their Paris film student days, Patrick Bureau.^[7]

Anouilh had set his script in Montparnasse, but by the 1970s the modern towers dominated the exteriors, so Miles moved the location to Montmartre which he knew well from his student days. This meant getting helpful co-operation from his old friends, the local vegetable market sellers, the butcher, the local artists and the poet Pierre Jacob and his wife Josia to play small roles and appear in the film.^[8][9]

Critical reception