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Description

This 1950 update of the Orphic myth by Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast) depicts a famous poet (Jean Marais) scorned by the Left Bank youth, and his love for both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and a mysterious princess (Maria Casarès). Seeking inspiration, the poet follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead through Cocteau’s famous mirrored portal. Orpheus represents the legendary Cocteau at the height of his abilities for peerless visual poetry and dreamlike storytelling.

Description

A 70th anniversary release of this rediscovered masterpiece by one of French cinema's giants, Jean Cocteau. In this heartbreaking drama based on Cocteau's highly successful stage play, a mother (Josette Day) smothers her grown son with boyish love. When the son (played by Cocteau regular Jeasn Marais) meets a girl and leaves the family circle, the mother flies into a rage. But when the boy tells his father it sets off another drama - she is none other than the girl the father has been secretly seeing. Tragedy strikes in this time-honoured tale of fledglings leaving the family nest.