The Joy of Living (1961) User Reviews

Classic Comedy

[lapratho · 9/10 · 2 January 2006]

Unlike a previous comment, I have to strongly disagree - this is one of the most hilarious movies I remember! It stuck in memory for over thirty years, and just that alone says something about the impact this piece made. One of those movies where I sat and alternately laughed and held my breath continuously. If you want to see a classic bomb tossing match, as the German title broadly indicated with "Halt mal die Bombe Liebling" (Please hold the bomb for a few my Darling) look no further! You need to have a certain sense and mindset to watch this kind of movie though. Simple, straightforward, lighthearted comedy with the over the top exaggerated flair only older French and Italian movies were able to generate and get away with. Just don't watch it, if you hate for example Louis de Funes or other European comedians, because this movie is in their style - a style and art form that seems long lost since Hollywood remade so many of these European movies into stale commercialized copies that spoiled everybody's appetite for more.

It has not aged well

[dbdumonteil · 27 October 2005]

It was the second time Delon had teamed up with René Clément:their first collaboration produced a great thriller "purple noon" .The second attempt produced a would be comedy which is not funny at all.The plot deals with fascists in charge of finding the antifascist printing houses.It's repetitive ,ponderous and boring.Barbara Lass was then Roman Polanski's wife and they came to France together at the turning of the decade.Lass's moment of glory was short-lived but Polanski would direct a segment in "les plus belles escroqueries du monde" a couple of years later.

Clement ditched comedy and went back to genres he was better at:the WW2 movie ("le jour et l'heure" ) and the thriller ("les félins")