User reviews

Jacqueline Audry is a special case in French cinema:today ,her work is either disdained or ignored.Nevertheless she was ,along Ida Lupino,and long before Agnès Varda ,the only woman director of the era ;and like her American peer ,she often focused on female psychology .From her personal version of child book by Comtesse De Ségur 's "Les Malheurs De Sophie" (Feuillère hints at it when she says it's the first book she gave to Olivia ;and a private joke too ,since it's Audry's first movie) to Sartre' s "Huis Clos" to Victor Limur's "La Garçonne ".

Girls school was a subject Audry had to broach ;except for two brief scenes ,it does not feature any male actors ;like in Leontine Sagan's "Madchen In Uniform" ,remade by Radvanyi in 1960 with Romy Schneider and Lili Palmer ,it's a movie which depicts lesbian friendship ;it was already a subplot in "club De Femmes" (1936) and ,two years after"Olivia" ,in "Dortoir Des Grandes " (1953) another subplot concerns a maths teacher in love with a beautiful pupil.

But in France ,only Jacqueline Audry dared to make an entire movie with the ambiguous shady relationship between women and girls ;along "La Garçonne" which told us the story of a woman who intended to live like a man in La Belle Epoque and "Huis Clos" ,which featured a lesbian character ,played by glorious Arletty,"Olivia " might be the director's apex.At a time when female directors make more and more their presence felt on the contemporary French scene ,isn't it about time to restore to favor the unsung Jacqueline Audry .

"Olivia" features two teachers ,Mademoiselle Julie (imperial Edwige Feuillère) and Mademoiselle Cara (Simone Simon ,known as the female lead in Renoir's masterpiece " La Bete Humaine" ,but who was also the unforgettable heroine of Tourneur's "cat people " ,and thus ,a perfect choice for his hypochondriac suicidal character).Both vie with each other for their pupils' love ,and the elegant aristocratic fascinating Juliette has the upper hand ;her whining anorexic colleague is no match for her and she sees desperately her favorites " leave her" for her brilliant enemy :although they pretend to be friends,their hate lies dormant,and tragedy is waiting around the corner.

Audry and her screenwriter/husband Pierre Laroche uses French literature as never before,and never since ..The extracts structure the story and inspire its vital romanticism :

Racine's Andromaque who desperately wants to save her son Astyanax is Juliette's burning love for the children she never had, thus her favorite pupils.

Lamartine's "Le lac"( "O Temps Suspends Ton Vol" (=time,stand still))is the happy time of the Juliette /Olivia relationship ,which culminates in the extraordinary scene of the Christmas fete.

Racine's "Berenice" is a transparent metaphor for the impending parting ;Hugo's "Paroles Sur LA Dune" is downright morbid with its"death,black bolt"

This is a place where boys never tread :maths are despised (and so is the teacher ,who makes up for it with what we could call binge- eating syndrome)and never taken seriously :a hundred years after,it would become THE subject ,even for girls,but at the time it was boys' business.

Boys are never mentioned : one of the girls gets a bad mark for her essay on Corneille 's "Le Cid" just because too much of her work was given over to Rodrigue's character!Off-topic!(or men are considered rivals in Juliette's mind).In the sensational Christmas fancy dress ball scene,which climaxes the movie, Juliette is like a queen on her throne,and Cara is nothing but an embittered lady-in-waiting.Around them ,girls dance together ,sometimes dressed up as men in an extremely sensual atmosphere.

A very permissive atmosphere in this luxury school ,where the "Crème De La Crème " ,as Miss Jean Brodie would say,reads lit classics all day long but every rose has its thorn and these students(and their teachers) cut themselves off from the real world .

The office Catholique Du Cinema forbade the movie to their flock (although they did not do the same for "Madchen In uniform" ,perhaps because the latter took place in Germany!)

Who will give Jacqueline Audry the place she deserves in the French cinema?

Marie-Claire Olivia arrives at a girl's school outside Paris, fresh from London. It's near the end of the 19th Century. There's good food, the grounds are magnificent, and the headmistress, Edwige Feuillère, is a lovely woman who wants her girls to be happy, and reads her lessons in literature in a very dramatic manner. The food is excellent, the kitchen supervised by Yvonne de Bray; she may rattle on foolishly, but her beef stew is delicious.

Yet there is something odd about the school. It's not there are factions. That seems obligatory in any movie about schoolgirls. It's the way the factions are set up. Is one under the spell of Mme Feuillère, or of Mlle Simone Simon, with her migraines and her weakness and self-indulgence? As the movie continues, the sexual components of these factions become more apparent.... as does the frisson between the two arch-rivals.

The movie is populated almost entirely by women. True, there are three investigators towards the end, disapproving and censorious; also an early appearance by Philippe Noiret; his first had been in GIGI, directed by Jacqueline Audry, also the director of this film. Through 1960 he appeared without a credit in four films; one of the others was an Agnes Varda feature.

Noiret, however, is mere window dressing for a scene. In sum, this looks like the same impulse as THE WOMEN, except here the men are largely abstract, annoying outsiders.

There are two pivotal women in this film, and it's not going to be easy for the young and impressionable "Olivia" (Marie-Claire Olivia) to decide in which camp to put her feet! She is an English lass who has arrived at a posh finishing school in France where she is welcomed by the school's charismatic and enigmatic "Miss Julie" (Edwige Feuillère) with whom she forms an instant attachment. Then there's the more cutely manipulative "Miss Cara" (Simone Simon) who has some sort undefined illness that sees half the school constantly pampering her and indulging her every need. She, too, is fascinated by their tutor and doesn't take at all kindly to the idea of this visiting, foreign, interloper... To put it mildly there's now an enjoyable frisson developing that has a very slight sexual change to it, too, as the women square up nicely in the most dignified and ladylike of fashions of course. Sure, there are some coming of age elements to the plot, but actually it's the rather subtly played games of jealousy that I liked here. There are few male characters to clutter up the toxicity of the dynamic of longing, yearning and back-stabbing and it proves that some clever writing and decent photography can convey tension and raw desire far more potently than nudity and profanity ever could. Ninety minutes flies by, and it's worth a watch.

I think this is was one of the best movies from the 50's. Is it touching to see the emotions in Olivia's face when she says under tears to her teacher that she loves her and later begins to cry in Julie's office when she calls her affection a "schimäre". The supporting characters are also excellent like the very strict but attractive Miss Riesener or the former pupil Laura, another beauty. I must also mention the dramatic wonderful film music.

This film, based on Dorothy Bussy's short novel, appeared on the screens when homosexuality was almost as taboo in the cinema as everywhere else in our so called civilized world. But at least France made it-and by a great female director who understood Sartre's play 'Huis Clos' better than almost any stage director. There is a lesbian character in 'Huis Clos' and arguably the lesbianism is more explicit in Sartre's play than in 'Olivia'. But ... Hell is going down in a lift to Hell? Even Sartre did not think of that incredible detail!

I am giving away no spoilers in this review, only to urge those who can, to see this film. It is set in a girl's school. Although no one could classify Simone Simon straight out of 'La Ronde' as a girl-they are young women. The acting is superb all round, and the images and dialogue perfect.

So why is this film hidden away? Why no DVD and only a long lost VHS tape to be found if you are lucky on Ebay? I have the video and have treasured it for years. And why the dreadful title 'The Pit of Loneliness', except to tempt and to suggest to people that this is all about 'perversion'? Trust America to do that at the height of homophobia back in the early 1950s! England at least released it with the title 'Olivia' but the film soon disappeared, lost in double feature programmes.

Such stark times should be behind us, but for some reason this classic is not deemed worthy of respect. There are no sexual acts in the film. It is an examination of feelings. In 2019 it should no longer be put into the darkest corner of cinema history. Perhaps, after all, these are still stark times.