In the French novel The Loved and the Unloved (1952), or Galigai, by Francois Mauriac, Madame Agathe (or Galigai) hopes that by exerting her will she will cause a young man, Nicholas Plassac, to enter a romantic liaison with her.  But Agathe is physically repelling and the efforts do not work.  Mauriac has written that, for his part, Nicholas has an “idol” he must be separated from, this being not Agathe but Gilles Salone, a fellow with whom Nicholas maintains a strong friendship.

Themes in the book include the limited power of amatory love and friendship, and when sacrifice is less than moral.  It is shown that idols go, like life itself, and there is the idea of divine love at dead ends.  About a particular character in the book, Mauriac writes, “It was as though he had agreed with somebody to meet him there,” the “somebody” being God.

Though not perfect, The Loved and the Unloved is a probing novel which certainly should be read more than once, as I have done.  In its translation by Gerard Hopkins, it was penned with lovely and clever clarity:  “that living silence of the night which is the very peace of God”. . . “She could feel in her flesh what such a night must mean to two young creatures pressing together under the tulip-tree, two creatures whose happiness she was about to sully.”  Mauriac was a writer, all right.

Books and stories.

Robert Louis Stevenson wanted Treasure Island to be a fun book.  Victor Fleming‘s adaptation (1934) is a fun movie.  Without mugging, Wallace Beery carries the production as Long John Silver.  The love of loftiness and the wise shots prove that Fleming was the right man chosen to direct Gone with the Wind, and yet Treasure Island is free of GWTW‘s deepest artifice.  It’s a robust pic, although I agree with Otis Ferguson about “the extended sentimentality”—goodbye, just desserts—at the end.

The Hanging Tree (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hope the novel The Hanging Tree, by Dorothy M. Johnson, is better than the Delmer Daves movie adapted from it, for the flick, a Western, is frequently quite dumb.  For example, the Montana townspeople here are willing to execute their only doctor (Gary Cooper) for a killing they know absolutely nothing about (it was done, in fact, in self-defense).

Yes, it is entertaining—it is gripping that Cooper gets rough with a sexual harasser (Karl Malden) who becomes a sexual assaulter (let this be a warning to YOU, Al Franken)—and Nile, Washington, where the film was shot, must be a gorgeous place.  But it’s a wonder The Hanging Tree, available on TV, DVD and Blu-Ray, is still hanging around.

Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Arch, 1928 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the 1957 Lafayette Escadrille, a punk kid (Tab Hunter) at the time of the Great War travels to France to join (with other Americans) an elite air force corp—the Lafayette Escadrille.  The corp is training to fight before the U.S. has entered the war.  In Paris, the young rebel falls in love with a French prostitute (Etchika Choureau) but he also aggressively strikes his drill sergeant and, after being sprung from jail by his Yank buddies, runs away.  He is now a deserter until he is given a second chance.

A personal project for Hollywood’s William Wellman, this is not one of the director’s better movies.  Not only does it seem partly dishonest, it is also rather imperfectly directed and Tab Hunter’s acting is utterly by-the-numbers.  Further, for a long time it makes French men, soldiers and otherwise, look like fools.  By the time it reaches midpoint, however, it gets a bit better.  Its anodyne love story, though it receives too much screen time, assuredly has its moments; and there is some nifty stuff involving the old WWI fighter planes.  But it’s a shame for Lafayette Escadrille to have to be a half-enticing failure.