A Time for Loving ** (1972, Joanna Shimkus, Mel Ferrer, Britt Ekland, Philippe Noiret, Lila Kedrova, Robert Dhéry, Mark Burns, Susan Hampshire) – Classic Movie Review 12,566

Christopher Miles’s 1970 film A Time for Loving is a bitter-sweet nostalgic look at Paris just before and during the second World War, based on an original screenplay by the notable French playwright Jean Anouilh. 

Director Christopher Miles’s bitter-sweet 1972 romantic comedy film A Time for Loving [Paris Was Made for Lovers] is a modest, rather underwhelming collection of playlets set in a Paris flat, with an interesting cast and a moderately charming script by the very notable French playwright Jean Anouilh.

With some decent acting and writing, it is all right if you are not expecting the romantic depths of La Ronde or the glossy laughs of Plaza Suite. Instead you get a nostalgic look at Paris by three couples who rent a Montmartre artist’s studio before and during the Second World War. Miles handles it smoothly and there is a sleek production.

Director Miles reunites with his Canadian actress star Shimkus from The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970).

It was released in April 1972.

It is Shimkus’s final film, aged 28, following The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971). In 1976 she married Sidney Poitier, who died on 6 January 2022, aged 94.

Jean Anouilh’s original screenplay was commissioned by the producer Anatole de Grunwald before he died in 1967, and was finally produced as a film by his younger brother Dimitri de Grunwald. Miles swapped the location from Montparnasse, where Seventies towers dominated the exteriors, to Montmartre, which he knew as a student.

The cast are Joanna Shimkus, Mel Ferrer, Britt Ekland, Philippe Noiret, Lila Kedrova, Robert Dhéry, Mark Burns, Susan Hampshire, Michel Legrand, Didier Haudepin, Ophélie Stermann, Jany Holt, Elénore Hirt, and Robert Le Béal.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,566

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