Poster
Watch

Day for Night

La Nuit américaine

  • Status: Released
  • 24-05-1973
  • Runtime: 116 min
  • Score: 7.8
  • Vote count: 633

A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.

Jacqueline Bisset

Julie Baker

Valentina Cortese

Séverine

Dani

Liliane, the Trainee Script Girl

Alexandra Stewart

Stacey

Jean-Pierre Aumont

Alexandre

Jean Champion

Bertrand, the Producer

Jean-Pierre Léaud

Alphonse

François Truffaut

Ferrand, the Director

Niké Arrighi

Odile, the Makeup Artist

Nathalie Baye

Joelle, the Script Girl

Maurice Seveno

TV Reporter

David Markham

Doctor Michael Nelson

Bernard Ménez

Bernard, the Property Master

Gaston Joly

Lajoie, the Location Manager

Zénaïde Rossi

Madame Lajoie

Xavier Saint-Macary

Christian

Marc Boyle

English Stuntman

Walter Bal

Walter, the Camera Operator

Jean-François Stévenin

Jean-François, the Assistant Director

Pierre Zucca

Pierrot, the Still Photographer

Martine Barraqué

Martine, the Editor (uncredited)

Marcel Berbert

French Insurer (uncredited)

Yann Dedet

Yann, the Editor (uncredited)

Georges Delerue

Georges, the Composer (narration) (uncredited)

Graham Greene

English Insurer (uncredited)

Ernest Menzer

Producer of Erotic Films (uncredited)

Claude Miller

Hotel Client (uncredited)

Jean Panisse

Bit Part (uncredited)

Marie Poitevin

Woman (uncredited)

Christophe Vesque

Child with the Cane in the Dream Sequence (uncredited)

CinemaSerf

It's quite hard to succinctly review this Truffaut comedy - there is just so much going on. Essentially, Jacqueline Bisset ("Julie") is brought to Nice to star in a movie about a British woman who is married to a Frenchman. She comes to meet his family and promptly falls in love with her husband's father and so leaves him to shack up with his dad. It turns out, as the production progresses that the producer "Bertrand" (Jean Champion) and the director "Ferrand" (Truffaut himself) have to deal with an whole gamut of issues as the cast - all assembled in a small hotel - come with more baggage than the Queen Mary. "Julie" is recovering from a failed marriage and a nervous breakdown; "Séverine" (Valentina Cortese) is having an affair - but with a bottle, and Jean-Pierre Léaud steals the film as the petulant and high-maintenance "Alphonse". It reminded me a little of Fellini's "8½" from ten years earlier, another behind the scenes as a movie is made story - but it could hardly be more different. Here, the cast and the crew could not have been more dysfunctional - a trait of the creative, I believe - but in the end somehow or other there is a chance the film might actually get made! It is good fun, and the odd contribution from Jean-Pierre Aumont help keep this 2 hour extravaganza moving along entertainingly. Georges Delerue's jaunty score compliments the lovely open-ness of this production, and I really enjoyed this film.