- This event has passed.
LADY KILLER
August 18, 2023 - August 27, 2023
Where are we Located? Free Parking What else is Showing this Month? Contact Us Subscribe to our Newsletter
Fri, Aug 18 at 7:30 ♦ Sat, Aug 19 at 4:30 and 7:30 ♦ Sun, Aug 20 at 4:30 and 7:30
Fri, Aug 25 at 7:30 ♦ Sat, Aug 26 at 4:30 and 7:30 ♦ Sun, Aug 27 at 4:30 and 7:30
IU Radio & Television Theater ♦ Purchase Tickets
A newly restored film from the late 1930s by unsung French filmmaker Jean Grémillon, Lady Killer is first collaboration between Grémillon and legendary actor Jean Gabin. Adaptated from a novel by André Boucler, it features the young Gabin as a foreign-legion Casanova – the “lady killer” of the title – who meets his match in the mysterious seductress Madeleine (Mireille Balin).
To come across the films of classic French filmmaker Jean Grémillon is like discovering another country, at once familiar and unaccountably new. — Los Angeles Times
“Gremillon belongs in the hierarchy of classic French cinema alongside René Clair, Jean Renoir, and Marcel Carné. — The Village Voice
Four Stars. Lady Killer is ONE OF THE SCREEN’S LEAST SEEN MASTERPIECES. Gabin, with his soft voice and sensual hesitations, never had a more suitable role, and Balin brings a palpable erotic charge to her femme fatale part. — Slant
CRITIC’S PICK! Compared to other heavy hitters from the golden age of French cinema — think Jean Renoir (“The Rules of the Game”) or Marcel Carné (“Children of Paradise”) — history hasn’t been kind to Jean Grémillon. This is especially the case in the United States, where the director’s work continues to be discussed among cinephiles like a special secret. It’s a shame. HIS FILMS ARE AMONG THE MOST INNOVATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE from a period stretching roughly from the early 1930s through the ’50s — and in many ways they look ahead to the rule breaking of the French New Wave. – The New York Times