Friday's Old Fashioned: Such a Pretty Little Beach (1949)

The eponymous strip of sand in “Such a Pretty Little Beach,” or “Une si jolie petite plage” in French, in some offseason beachside French town is cold, windy, gloomy, and rain-ridden and it’s why when Pierre (Gérard Philipe) shows up at the one hotel still open looking for a little rest and relaxation, you know he is not there for rest and relaxation at all. There are elements of a mystery in director Yves Allégret’s poetic realist noir, what with the murdered Parisian nightclub singer filling the newspapers that Pierre pointedly does not want to read and various hints that this town is a place where Pierre has been before, but more than that, “Such a Pretty Little Beach” is about atmosphere and aesthetic or what in 2025 parlance you might call vibes. The omnipresent rain is a virtual supporting character just as the Parisian nightclub singer frequently heard lamenting by way of crooning via record is an unseen supporting character too. In one indelible frame, Pierre and a few other hotel guests are momentarily frozen in the face of the phonograph, bringing to life the idea of music as an avenue to memory. (I snapped the screenshot below, but you gotta see this is a moving picture because it underlines how they are truly frozen.) 

It’s an image that conjures a doomed romanticism, as does a lengthy existentialist conversation with hotel maid Marthe (Madeleine Robinson). That walk and talk sequence ends with them sitting side by side, Pierre laying his head in her lap, and closing his eyes. That’s a recurring motif, him putting his head down and going to sleep, evoking a character who has essentially checked out on his own existence. You can hardly blame him given the backstory that emerges in bits and pieces. And though an orphaned hotel drudge (Christian Ferry) paralleling Pierre’s past is ultimately meant to suggest a kind of karmic breaking of the cycle, well, the bell still tolls, literally and metaphorically, for Pierre come movie’s end. Indeed, “Such a Pretty Little Beach” culminates in a title drop so wickedly bleak that if you started the movie nature is the proof of God, you’ll end it thinking nature is nothing more than evidence of a barren, Godless eternity. I laughed to keep from crying. Would recommend!