Forbidden Games
In a television interview ("Vivement Dimanche Prochain", France 2, 17 April 2005) Brigitte Fossey, who played the little Paulette, revealed that the film had originally been shot as a short, and then it was later decided to extend it into a feature film. Unfortunately she had lost her milk teeth and Georges Poujouly (who plays the boy Michel) had had his hair cut to play in We Are All Murderers (1952). So, in many scenes of the movie Paulette has false teeth and Michel is wearing a wig.,The poor parents are killed by a Focke-Wulf 190. This kind of plane didn't exist at the moment of the "battle of France" in May and June 1940.,There are two alternate opening credits:The main credit starts with a story book and a female hand opens the book to reveal the credits. The alternate still has the same book but this time we are introduced to the two main characters who are sitting by a lake. In this version, Michel's hand is turning the page and in between the scenes he tells Paulette that he's going to tell a story.,Featured in Le ciné-club de Radio-Canada: Film présenté: Jeux interdits (1959),A classic French foreign film, one of the best. A necessity for every foreign film lover's video library, along with Cinema Paradiso and Life Is Beautiful. This film haunts you and stays with you long after the film flashes its "finis". Part of this is due to the musical soundtrack, with its romantic guitar melodies, part of it has to do with the sadness of the storyline....the little girl's losing her parents and beloved dog early in the picture, but mostly the film lingers in your heart because of the outstanding performances by the child actors in this film, Georges Poujouly who plays Michel, and especially Brigitte Fossey as Paulette. Her little innocent face expresses all the horrors and trauma of war, what all the millions of children must have felt who were caught up in the barbarism of World War Two, when the security of a loving home was pulled out from under them. Never has the agony of a human being's suffering been so well captured on film, and I think Brigitte was all of six years old when she performed in this movie. A remarkable feat.,