The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) on Netflix
NR19641h 31mDramaMusicalRomance
Geneviève, seventeen, works in the Cherbourg umbrella shop her widowed mother runs. She loves Guy, an auto mechanic, but Madame Émery disapproves, and Guy is called up to fight in Algeria.
- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.8/1035,695 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Madame Émery and her seventeen-year-old daughter Geneviève run a small umbrella boutique in Cherbourg that is close to bankruptcy. Roland Cassard, a wealthy Parisian jeweler, buys some of Madame Émery's jewelry, which keeps the shop going. Geneviève loves Guy, a twenty-year-old auto mechanic who shares a home with his sickly aunt and godmother, Élise. Madame Émery objects to the match. Madeleine, who looks after Élise, is in love with Guy. Guy and Geneviève intend to marry and to give their first child the name Françoise. Then the army sends Guy to Algeria, and on his final night in Cherbourg the two promise themselves to each other.
Cast
- Pierre Cadenas Bernard
- Bernard Fradetas Gas Station Apprentice
- Michel Benoistas Umbrella Buyer
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg won the Palme d'Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, making it the only film of the French New Wave ever to take the festival's top prize.
- Because the cast of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg were not trained singers, most of the actors' voices were dubbed and lipsynced rather than sung by the performers themselves.
- Knowing the Eastman stock would fade, director Jacques Demy made three colour separation masters on black-and-white negative film, which does not fade. In the 1990s his wife, director Agnès Varda, used them to create a new colour negative, and restored prints followed in 2004.
- Damien Chazelle has called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg a major influence on his 2016 film La La Land, and Greta Gerwig cited it as an inspiration for her 2023 film Barbie.
- Two songs from the film, "I Will Wait for You" and "Watch What Happens", became hits in North America and were recorded by many artists, both given new English lyrics by Norman Gimbel.
- The score of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg established composer Michel Legrand's reputation in Hollywood, and he went on to score other films and win three Academy Awards.
