Funny Girl & Pretty Woman.

How many actresses make us laugh without losing their glamour ? How many are both attractive and funny ?

Few. In fewer movies.

Garbo was, not only in « Ninotchka » : a little, knowing smile was all she needed. Marilyn Monroe passed the test with flying and sexy colours though in black and white « Some like it hot ».

Audrey Hepburn brought an appealing mix of girlish fun and charm to « Sabrina » and « Breakfast at Tiffany’s » ; she matured beautifully in « Charade », with Cary Grant’s support.

Among the living, Meg Ryan was a pleasure to watch in « When Harry met Sally » and even « French Kiss ». Almodovar’s women ? Maybe. His men ? Maybe too.

These are exceptions : romantic comedy is tricky. Too many « ingénue » faces and dreamy looks, and Audrey Hepburn falls into irritating mannerism. Katherine Hepburn is great at the first screening of « Bringing up baby », annoying at the second. Two reels of « The Aviator » convince that Cate Blanchett, masquerading as Katherine Hepburn, gives one of the more grotesque performances in film history.

France likes its funny ladies « physically challenged » : actresses whose silhouette and looks depart from the sex goddess standards : Josiane Balasko, Dominique Lavanant, Valérie Lemercier -though, in her first film as a director « Le derrière », « The bum », her naked buttocks came as a pleasant surprise to many-, Marie-Anne Chazel.... many from the « café théâtre » generation.

Time partly vindicates them : they age better than their pretty competitors, or we just get used to them ; still, they face a daunting task : if it is highly disputable that you take a woman to bed by making her laugh, it is even more so that you can seduce a man in similar fashion.

Unless you are Catherine Deneuve : at least twice, the reigning lady of French cinema in the 1960’s and 1970’s won over her male audience by being beautifully funny.

In « La vie de château » (1965), she is a bored young wife looking for entertainment during the final days of German WW2 Occupation of France ; she shall get it.

Ten years later, in « Le sauvage » (« Lovers like us » : who would watch a film with such a silly title ? Apparently nobody), she storms into the confined life of Yves Montand, a refugee from the world on his own desert island.

In both films, she seems forgetful of her beauty : definitely great acting. Her on-screen spontaneity and lack of pretense trick us into believing that we, mere mortals, belong in the same world with her.We know this cannot be, but nevertheless surrender, more stunned than if Elizabeth II accepted our invitation to picnic, brought home-made cookies and grabbed at chicken wings with both hands.

We feel immensely grateful : she could play « femme fatale » and force all male characters into immediate submission, but contents herself with the roles of « spoiled child » and « lovable pain in the neck » and agrees to struggle through two films to get what she could obtain, Lauren Bacall way, anytime by simply whistling. Her generosity is so vast that it allows us not only to laugh with her, but also at her : a pleasurable blasphemy (is it a pleonasm ?).

Her male partners add to our happiness : identifying with them is so easy. They offer us the illusion that, through them, Catherine Deneuve is accessible to us. Philippe Noiret is a touching plump, hair-receding husband turned hero for the love of his wife, and who would not feel heroic to conquer her ? We sympathise with playfully overacting Yves Montand when she wrecks his life ; like him, we would gladly give her a spanking, but wonder why his eyes are so slow to open on his once-in-ten-lifetimes piece of amazing luck.

French cinema is, or was, a small family : both films were directed by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a co-writer on « L’homme de Rio » where Catherine Deneuve’s sister, Françoise Dorléac, was also great charm and fun.

The French Kubrick of romantic comedy -he spends years working at his projects with painstaking precision-, Jean-Paul Rappeneau deserves his share of credit for Deneuve’s performances : in a later film, « Tout feu, tout flamme » (1982), he made Isabelle Adjani funny and likable : no small feat.