Year

Country

Home

People

Films

Articles

Store

The History of French Cinema: 1958

29/1 -

26-year-old Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Frantic) is released. [ADD]

4/4 -

Jacques Becker's Montparnasse 19 (Modigliani of Montparnasse) is released.   The film is dedicated to the memory of Max Ophüls who died in March 1957, and who was originally intended to direct the film. [ADD]

12/3 -

Sophia Loren leaves the Cannes Film Festival early after failing to get an evening screening of her latest film, Desire Under the Elms. [ADD]

16/6 -

Frank Sinatra interviews Grace Kelly, now Princess Grace, in Monaco for an American TV documentary. [ADD]

8/7 -

A survey in France Soir reveals that 63%  of French men and 59% of French women are interested in the cinema; 25% prefer romantic films, 20% thrillers and 12% historical films. [ADD]

17/9 -

Jean Gabin and Brigitte Bardot star in Claude Autant-Lara's En cas de malheur (Love Is My Profession).   Gabin plays a middle-aged lawyer who falls in love with the young woman (Bardot) he is defending against a charge of theft. [ADD]

29/9 -

Film critic François Truffaut begins his search for a 12-year-old boy to star in his first feature, Les Quatre cent coups (The Four Hundred Blows). [ADD]

10/10 -

Marcel Carné's Les Tricheurs (Youthful Sinners) is released.   Featuring jazz recordings by Stan Getz, Roy Eldridge, Oscar Peterson and Dizzy Gillespie, the films tells the story of disenfranchised youth in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.   Unknowns Jacques Charrier and Pascale Petit star. [ADD]

23/10 -

The Centre International du Cinéma et de la Télévision is founded. [ADD]

5/11 -

Louis Malle's Les Amants (The Lovers) is released to critical acclaim.    Jeanne Moreau stars as a bored middle-class wife who enjoys a night of passion with an archeology student (Jean-Marc Bory).   The Catholic Church, however, considers that "Christian duty demands that the film should be avoided." [ADD]

10/11 -

Filming of François Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (400 Blows), begins. [ADD]

11/11 -

Film critic, theorist and co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma, André Bazin dies of leukaemia in Paris at the age of 40. [ADD]

18/12 -

Brigitte Bardot appears at the Palais de Justice for injunction proceedings against Bruno Coquatrix of the Comédie Caumartin Théâtre, over the title of his revue, Ça va Bardot!. [ADD]

Other Key French Films of 1958

The History of Cinema: 1958