Martine (1 Nov 1961)

Based on a play by Jean-Jacques Bernard.

Premise

In a small town in France, a young peasant girl, Martine, meets a sophisticated man from Paris, Julien. Julien tries to seduce Martine but they are interrupted by a peasant, Alfred.

Julien goes to stay with his grandmother, Madame Mervan, who wants him to marry Jeanne. Julien has feelings for Martine but eventually decides to marry Jeanne.

Alfred courts Martine but she rejects him. 

Cast

• Annette Andre as Martine
• Frederick Parslow as Julien
• Joan Harris as Jeanne
• Barbara Brandon as Madame Mervan, Julien's grandmother
• Lloyd Cunnington as Station master
• Graham Hughes as Alfred, a peasant
• Ray Angel, Justine Rettick, Horst Bergfried
  

Original play

The play premiered in France in 1922. Here's a link to the original in French.

It was translated into English by John Leslie Frith. The play debuted in England in 1929.

It later played in England in 1933. A review of that production by James Agate is here. Further information is here.

John Fowles later did a translation that debuted in 1985.

Other productions

The play was performed on stage in Sydney in 1957. 

It was adapted for ABC radio in 1940, in 1944 (adapted by Max Afford) and in 1958.

It was adapted for radio in 1962 and again in 1966. 

A BBC version was broadcast on ABC radio in 1967.

It was filmed for BBC television in 1947.

Production

The play was long in the repertoire of the Comedie Francaise and director Chris Muir said it required tender and delicate handling. 

It was shot in Melbourne.

Annette Andre recalled the production. "That was directed by Chris Muir. I loved him as a director, he was very intelligent and more experienced. He wasn’t easy, but he could get a performance out of an actor. I really enjoyed working in Martine. We did that down in Melbourne. I played a mute girl, a very different role for me but an interesting one. I think I got some reasonable reviews." 

Based on the play by Jean-Jacques Bernard, and the translation by John Leslie Frith. Television adaptation by Wal Cherry.  Technical supervisor - Les Bail. Designer - Trevor Ling. Producer - Christopher Muir.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald said Parslow's "fine acting gave" the production "a touch of excellence that it otherwise could not hope to attain" calling the story "poignant, tender and slight."

 

SMH 28 Dec 1961 p 4

The Age Supplement 26 Oct 1961 p 3

SMH 23 Dec 1961 p 11

The Age 26 Oct 1961 p 33

The Age Supplement 26 Oct 1961 p 2

The Age Supplement 26 Oct 1961 p 1

The Age 1 Nov 1961 p 13

SMH 27 Dec 1961 p 7

Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Martine
by Stephen Vagg
August 29, 2021
Stephen Vagg’s series of forgotten Australian TV dramas looks at a 1961 French love story, Martine.

In the early days of Australian television, you were as likely to see a locally-made drama based on French source material as an Australian one. This was because the bulk of that drama was produced by the ABC who had a brief to make “high culture” – and in the late 1950s and early 1960s that effectively meant Britain and Europe, rather than Australia (American material was generally distrusted at the ABC too but, unlike Australian drama, there was plenty to sample on the commercial stations). This attitude wasn’t restricted to television, but also prevalent in (some of) our arti-er theatres and on ABC radio.

So, in addition to adaptations of work by the usual suspects (Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov), the ABC filmed local versions of writers such as Jean Anouilh (very popular at the ABC), Andre Gide, Jean Sarment, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sacha Guitry, Moliere and Jean Cocteau.

Martine, shot at the ABC’s Melbourne studios in 1961, was based on a 1922 French play by Jean-Jacques Bernard, which had been translated into an English version by John Leslie Frith in 1929. No one much talks about this play today – it was never turned into a famous film, for instance, and Bernard never enjoyed the reputation in English-speaking countries of, say, Anouilh, Moliere or Cocteau – but for a time, Martine had quite a vogue: it played on the West End, was adapted a bunch of times for British radio and TV as well as for ABC radio, and was popular in amateur theatres in Britain and Australia.

The story is set in a French village in the 1890s, and concerns a lower-class girl, Martine (Annette Andre). She meets Jacques (Frederick Parslow), a dashing writer from the city who has come to stay with his grandmother (Barbara Brandon). He flirts with Martine for a day, and she takes it far too seriously, not realising granny wants Jacques to marry Jeanne (Joan Harris). Matters are complicated by a peasant, Alfred (Graham Hughes), who desires Martine.

I haven’t read the original play, but I can see the effect Bernard was going for: a wistful rural romance between two people of different classes that’s going to end unhappily for the peasantry, along the lines of the Max Ophuls film Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) or John Galsworthy’s short story The Apple Tree (which was filmed in 1988 as A Summer Story). I’m guessing the reason it was so popular back in the day, is it involved a simple story with only a few roles, three of them meaty ones for female actors.

I recently watched the 1961 Australian version. I really enjoyed the sets and costumes and the performance of Annette Andre in the title role – she’s lovely, and genuinely heartbreaking. Andre didn’t always get roles worthy of her talent (like a lot of attractive younger actresses, she was often stuck playing “the girl” or “the daughter”), but here, she has something to get her teeth into and really rises to the occasion. The way Martine winds up treated by Jeanne and Jacques is actually quite horrible, and while the play is generally pitched as a melancholy romance, you could also see it working as a thriller about manipulative rich sociopaths.

Frederick Parslow, a hugely experienced and skilled actor, seems uneasily cast as Jacques, not quite attractive enough for Annette Andre to be so devoted. Maybe that’s shallow on my part, and I don’t want to upset any Frederick Parslow fans who might stumble upon this, but the whole play depends on us buying that Martine becomes obsessed with this guy after one afternoon’s flirting, and the way it’s done here is not terribly convincing. Having said that, I recognise that Louis Jourdans don’t grow on trees.

I’ll nail my nationalistic colours to the mast and add that I wish the play had been adapted to be set in Australia (incidentally, the adaptation was by Wal Cherry, a big name in  Australian theatre). There’s no reason why the story couldn’t have been relocated here – we have small towns, unrequited love, and class differences. It would have given the piece’s existence more justification from a cultural point of view.

I watched a copy of Martine with Annette Andre – who I interviewed last year – and asked for her thoughts. She said:

“I didn’t remember anything about it, except that I had very blonde hair!!! I was surprised at my performance, I thought it played well, but I lacked the experience then to find more subtlety, change of pace and emotional variation in my character. Unfortunately, the sound wasn’t controlled, and some voices penetrated above and beyond. But, it was interesting for me to see it so many years later. It could have been a much better production with sound control, and it seemed too that some of our performances lacked a sense of relationship to each other.”

Out of interest, other ABC adaptations of works by French writers for television include Holiday in Biarritz (1957), Symphonie Pastorale (1958), The Lark (1958), Dinner with the Family (1959), Crime Passionel (1959), Two Headed Eagle (1960), Traveller without Luggage (1961), Don’t Listen Ladies (1963), The Fighting Cock (1963), Tartuffe (1965), Topaze (1966), and Point of Departure (1966).
The author would like to thank Annette Andre for her assistance with this article, even if she was overly self-deprecating about her own abilities.