For his lead, director René Clément chose Austrian Maria Schell, a beautiful twenty-nine year-old actress who had been in German films since 1942, with François Périer playing her husband. Billed as "A Most Unusual Love Story in a Most Unusual Motion Picture!" it received the blessing of the Zola family, who have always been conscientious when it comes to authorizing film adaptations of Émile Zola's work. Zola's great-granddaughter Brigitte was taken to the set to watch the filming. "As a little girl of about ten I had accompanied my grandfather Jacques on the set of Gervaise (based on L'Assomoir) and had seen the different rehearsals of the famous "spanking" scene [in which Schell's character gets into a fight with Suzy Delair and spanks her with a wooden paddle. In the French version, Delair's bare bottom is shown (it was actually her double's, Rita Cadillac), but this was cut for the American release]. Maria Schell played Gervaise; my grandfather was pleased to note that she represented the character of Gervaise well, physically and psychologically. He chatted with her, and I was all ears."
Gervaise was released in West Germany on August 3, 1956 and came to the United States in November 1957. Critic Pauline Kael would later write that it was a "painstaking and rich evocation of mid-19th-Century Paris, photographed to suggest Daguerre [the famous early photographer]." Bosley Crowther blatantly gushed about the film in his New York Times review, "If ever there was a director who could be expected to put upon the screen a faithful pictorial representation of Emile Zola's most sharp and scorching works, that director is the Frenchman René Clément. [...] He's the man for Zola, that's for sure. [...] Gervaise is the name of the heroine -the mother of Nana, by the way - and she is beautifully, tragically played here by the fine German actress Maria Schell."
"While Fraulein Schell is undoubtedly the matchless focal figure in this film and plays it with a range of feminine feeling that fairly staggers one with awe and sympathy, she is brilliantly assisted. François Perier as the poor chap she weds gives a desolating demonstration of the erosion of confidence and hope. Armand Mestral is slick as her cheap lover, Suzy Delair is sly as the local shrew and Jacques Harden is dignified and tender as a bearded blacksmith who loves Gervaise in vain. Little Chantal Gozzi plays Nana as a child and is elevated by M. Clement's camera (and his feeling for the raw candor of children) into a formidable symbol of a future peril. An excellent musical score by Georges Auric, sensitive black-and-white camera-work and even good English subtitles assist in making this two-hour-long film a deeply moving flow of human revelation, one of the best the screen has offered this year."
The New York Film Critics awarded Gervaise Best Foreign Language film and the BAFTA gave it the Best Film From Any Source as well as Best Foreign Actor for François Perier. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and at the Venice Film Festival, director René Clément won the FIPRESCI Prize and Maria Schell won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress.
Producer: Annie Dorfmann
Director: Rene Clement
Screenplay: Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost; Emile Zola (novel "L'Assomoir")
Cinematography: Robert Juillard
Art Direction: Paul Bertrand
Music: Georges Auric
Film Editing: Henri Rust
Cast: Maria Schell (Gervaise Macquart), François Perier (Henri Coupeau), Jany Holt (Mme Lorilleaux), Mathilde Casadesus (Mme Boche), Florelle (Maman Coupeau), Micheline Luccioni (Clemence), Lucien Hubert (M. Poisson), Jacques Harden (Goujet), Jacques Hilling (M. Boche), Amedee (Mes Bottes).
BW-112m.
by Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
Zola and Film by Anna Gural-Midgal and Robert Singer
The Internet Movie Database
Film Review by Bosley Crowther, The New York Times
