Tag Archives: French actress

RIP Suzy Delair (1917 – 2020)

Suzy Delair was a French actress with a long and fruitful career.

I choose to represent her with one film, Atoll K (1951), the final film of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in which she is a marooned cabaret singer.

The film is strangely relevant today in its goofy discussion of statelessness and open borders.

There is one scene where this all comes together when they wish to establish their island as a new republic, with Hardy as president and Laurel as “the people.”

They write a constitution declaring their atoll will have no laws, no taxes, and no immigration controls.

 Atoll K (1951)

Oliver asks:

Now, what kind of government do we want?

Very little government would be good, I think.

– Without too many laws.
– And no passports.

No passports.

– And no prisons.
– No prisons.

What?

– No taxes.
– No taxes.

This is getting to be a perfect government.

And I will add…
No laws and no money.

Atoll K, 1:02:00

RIP Claudine ‘bond girl’ Auger (1941 – 2019)

Scene from Yo Yo (1965)

Claudine Auger was a French actress. I do not think she is related to Brian Auger.

Auger will be remembered as a ‘bond girl’ but in my universe, she is the mother in Exploits of a Young Don Juan (1986), Isolina in Yo Yo (1965), the “thief!” shouter in Terrain Vague (1960) and Renata in Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971).

Sometimes, the death of someone serves as a jumping board to something only tangentially related to the deceased. This is the case with the Yo Yo film fragment with its mime aesthetic in which Auger plays Isolina.

Nevertheless, please enjoy despite its tangentiality.