Made in USA (film)

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Made in U.S.A.

Movie Poster
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Produced by Georges de Beauregard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
Donald E. Westlake
Starring Anna Karina
Jean-Pierre Léaud
Music by Robert Schuman
Ludwig van Beethoven
Cinematography Raoul Coutard
Release date(s) Flag of France 1966
Running time 90 min.
Language French
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Made in U.S.A is a 1966 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Greatly inspired by the Howard Hawks film The Big Sleep and unofficially based on the novel The Jugger, by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake), it stars Anna Karina, Jean-Pierre Léaud, László Szabó and Yves Afonso. Because neither Godard nor the producer paid the book's adaptation rights and following legal action by Westlake, the film has been more or less unavailable in the United States.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Paula Nelson (Anna Karina), a female version of Humphrey Bogart's hard boiled detectives, goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover, Richard Politzer, at an unknown point in the future (maybe 1969). Once there, she learns that Richard is dead and decides to investigate his death. In her hotel room, she meets Typhus, who she ends up knocking out. His dead corpse is later found in the apartment of David Goodis (Yves Afonso), a writer.[1] Paula is arrested to be interrogated because of the death of Typhus. From then on, she encounters many gangsters.

[edit] Cast

  • Anna Karina as Paula Nelson
  • Jean-Pierre Léaud as Donald Siegel
  • László Szabó as Richard Widmark
  • Marianne Faithfull as Herself
  • Ernest Menzer as Edgar Typhus
  • Kyôko Kosaka as Doris Mizoguchi
  • Yves Afonso as David Goodis
  • Marc Dudicourt as Barman
  • Rémo Forlani as Workman in bar
  • Jean-Luc Godard as Richard Politzer (voice)
  • Sylvain Godet as Robert MacNamara
  • Claude Bouillon as Inspector Aldrich
  • Claude Bakka as Man with Marianne Faithfull
  • Philippe Labro as Himself
  • Jean-Pierre Biesse as Richard Nixon

[edit] Production

The movie was shot at the same time as Two or Three Things I Know About Her. Godard did it to help his friend and producer, Georges de Beauregard, in difficulties after the censure of La Religieuse, a movie by Jacques Rivette, that he produced.[citation needed]

This is the last full-length movie where Anna Karina and Jean-Luc Godard collaborated. He again directed her in a segment (called "Anticipation, ou: l'amour en l'an 2000" (Anticipation: or Love in the Year 2000)) of the movie Le plus vieux métier du monde (1967).

[edit] Trivia

Marianne Faithfull has a cameo in a cafe scene where she sings "As Tears Go By".

[edit] References

  1. ^ Named for the American writer.

[edit] External links