Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978)

Préparez vos mouchoirs

The Delicious Anarchy of Love and Devotion

Solange is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul, makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane, proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.

Date of release
1978-01-11
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (151)
Runtime
1h 48m
Genres
Romance, Comedy, Drama
Director
Bertrand Blier

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 2. Including: Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs is a 1978 French comedy film directed by Bertrand Blier and starring Carole Laure, Gérard Depardieu, Patrick Dewaere and Riton Liebman. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 51st Academy Awards. Critic Arion Berger called it "a romantic comedy that bears no resemblance to romantic comedy as a genre".

Production

Director Bertrand Blier wrote the screenplay "from the middle", starting by writing the scene where Raoul and Stéphane fantasize about meeting Mozart. Blier considered using an actor to portray Mozart in a historically-appropriate costume for the scene.

While writing the script, Blier planned to use actors Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as the leads, having previously worked with them on Going Places (1974). The familiarity meant the men were comfortable together. Blier discovered Riton Liebman, who was 13 years old at the time, and cast him as Christian in the film, where he is credited simply as Riton.

In reference to the scene where Carole Laure undresses in front of the kid, Bertrand Blier said: "We were shooting take after take without ever being satisfied. We had the impression that the scene was obscene, vulgar. Everyone was unhappy, from the actors to the stagehands. And then suddenly, on the ninth take, the miracle: a collective relief, the certainty that this time 'it would work'.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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