Jean Renoir

Elena and Her Men

Elena and Her Men

Set amid the military maneuvers and Quatorze Juillet carnivals of turn-of-the-century France, Jean Renoir’s delirious romantic comedy Elena and her Men (Elena et les hommes) stars a radiant Ingrid Bergman as a beautiful, but impoverished, Polish princess who drives men of all stations to fits of desperate love. When Elena elicits the fascination of a famous general, she finds herself at the center of romantic machinations and political scheming, with the hearts of several men—as well as the future of France—in her hands.

Film Info

  • France
  • 1956
  • 95 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • French
  • Spine #244

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction to the film by director Jean Renoir
  • Jean Renoir—Hollywood and Beyond: part two of a two-part 1993 BBC documentary by David Thompson, featuring reflections on Renoir from his family, friends, collaborators, and admirers
  • Jean Renoir parle de son art: part three of Jacques Rivette's three-part interview with Renoir
  • Collection of production stills
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: an original essay by Renoir historian Christopher Faulkner

Available In

Collector's Set

Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir

Stage and Spectacle: Three Films by Jean Renoir

DVD Box Set

3 Discs

$63.96

Special Features

  • High-definition digital transfer
  • Introduction to the film by director Jean Renoir
  • Jean Renoir—Hollywood and Beyond: part two of a two-part 1993 BBC documentary by David Thompson, featuring reflections on Renoir from his family, friends, collaborators, and admirers
  • Jean Renoir parle de son art: part three of Jacques Rivette's three-part interview with Renoir
  • Collection of production stills
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • Plus: an original essay by Renoir historian Christopher Faulkner
Elena and Her Men
Cast
Ingrid Bergman
Princess Elena Sorokowska
Jean Marais
General Rollan
Mel Ferrer
Henri de Chevincourt
Jean Richard
Hector
Juliette Gréco
Miarka
Pierre Bertin
Martin-Michaud
Dora Doll
Rosa la Rose
Frédéric Duvallès
Gaudin
Renaud Mary
Fleury
Jacques Morel
Duchêne
Albert Rémy
Buchez
Léo Marjane
The street singer
Jean Claudio
Lionel
Mirko Ellis
Marbeau
Jacques Hilling
Lisbonne
Jacques Jouanneau
Eugène
Elina Labourdette
Paulette
Olga Valéry
Olga
Credits
Director
Jean Renoir
Producer
Louis Wipf
Writers
Jean Renoir
Writers
Jean Serge
Cinematography
Claude Renoir
Editing
Borys Lewin
Production design
Jean André
Costume designer
Rosine Delamare
Sound recordist
William Robert Sivel
Original music by
Joseph Kosma

Current

Happy 100th Birthday, Ingrid Bergman!
Happy 100th Birthday, Ingrid Bergman!
Check out this video tribute to a matchless screen icon that Jonathan Keogh made for us —this weekend marks Ingrid Bergman’s centennial. Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

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Jean Renoir

Writer, Director

Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir

The son of the great impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jean Renoir was also a master of his medium: cinema. After making his mark in the early thirties with two very different films, the anarchic send-up of the bourgeoisie Boudu Saved from Drowning and the popular-front Gorky adaptation The Lower Depths, Renoir closed out the decade with two critical humanistic studies of French society that routinely turn up on lists of the greatest films ever made: Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game (the former was celebrated in its time, but the latter was trashed by critics and audiences—until history provided vindication). After a brief, unfulfilling Hollywood stint during World War II, Renoir traveled to India to make his first Technicolor film, The River, and then returned to Europe in the early fifties to direct three visually dazzling explorations of theater, The Golden Coach, French Cancan, and Elena and Her Men. Renoir persisted in his cinematic pursuits until the late sixties, when, after the completion of The Little Theater of Jean Renoir, a collection of three short films, he decided to dedicate himself solely to writing, leaving the future of the medium to those who looked to him in reverence.