Romance
Fantasy
Drama
A famous poet in postwar Paris, scorned by the Left Bank youth, is in love with both his wife Eurydice and a mysterious princess. Seeking inspiration, the poet becomes obsessed and follows the princess from the world of the living to the land of the dead.
Directors
Jean Marais
Orphée
François Périer
Heurtebise
María Casares
Death
Marie Déa
Eurydice
Henri Crémieux
Editor
Juliette Gréco
Aglaonice
Roger Blin
The Poet
Edouard Dermithe
Jacques Cégeste
André Carnège
Judge
René Worms
Judge
Raymond Faure
Journalist
Pierre Bertin
Commissioner
Jacques Varennes
Judge
Paul Amiot
Judge (uncredited)
Philippe Bordier
Young Man at Café des Poètes (uncredited)
Claude Borelli
Une bacchante (uncredited)
Jean-Louis Brau
Young Man on the Terrace of the Flora (uncredited)
Jean Cocteau
Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Directors
User reviews1
Review
Featured review
Accomplished poet "Orphée" (Jean Marais) is sitting in a café with a friend one afternoon when a fracas breaks out with some local students that necessitates the intervention of the police and causes a tragedy to occur. A woman in a Rolls Royce turns up and asks her aides to put an injured man into her car. Shen then rather bossily requires the writer to accompany her as a witness. He assumes they are going to hospital, but it turns out the man - "Cegeste" (Edouard Dermithe) is already dead and that she (María Casares), well she is certainly not the "princess" she purports to be. If you're at all familiar with the "Orpheus" episode from Greek legend then you will be able to guess much of the rest of this as he finds himself embroiled in the plottings of Death. The complication here is that she takes a bit of a shine to him, and her chauffeur "Heurtebise" (Francois Périer) falls in love with his wife "Eurydice" (Marie Déa). My what a web we do weave. Now all in the underworld, a tribunal of death rules that things have not gone to plan and that the husband and wife are to be returned to their world - but only for so long as he doesn't look at her - else back she goes. A little unfair I thought given they'd done nothing wrong and weren't on the hit list in the first place - but that was the deal. Can they make it work? Now, do they even want to? I found Marais could be quite wooden at times, indeed he might have made for a decent "Tarzan" - but here he gels well with both Déa and with a strikingly effective Casares. Cocteau manages to integrate the ancient mythology within a modern day setting in a fashion that cleverly uses simple visual effects - and mirrors - to achieve the concept of a parallel world of "Hades" without making it all look ridiculously fake. He also manages to remove just about all the gooey sentiment from this romance, too. Next time you look at a pair of rubber gloves, though - best beware!
Geronimo196705 Feb, 2024
Top picks
TV shows and movies just for you
Box office
Budget
$0Gross worldwide
$0More to explore
Editorial lists
Related lists created by IMDb editors
- The Billion-Dollar Film Club: 50+ Movies to Reach $1 Billion Worldwideupdated 1 day ago • 52 images
- The most anticipated sequels, prequels, and spin-offs coming in 2023updated 4 days ago • 26 images
- The best things to watch this weekend: Dec. 16 - Dec. 19updated 2 months ago • 7 images
- December Picks: The Movies and TV You Can't Missupdated 2 monts ago • 20 images
- New and upcoming sequels, prequels, and spin-offsupdated 3 monts ago • 45 images
