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Stolen Kisses
Description by Andrea LeVasseur

The episodic romantic comedy Stolen Kisses is the third installment in François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, which started with The 400 Blows in 1959. In 1968, Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is discharged from the military and comes home to Paris, getting an apartment in Montmartre with an excellent view of the Sacré-Coeur. He meets up with his sweetheart, Christine Darbon (Claude Jade, making her film debut), and joins her and her parents for dinner (Daniel Ceccaldi and Claire Duhamel). With the help of Christine's father, he gets a job as a hotel clerk but quickly gets fired after he unwittingly aids a private detective (Harry Max). After running into the detective at a coffee shop, Antonie then falls into a job at the Blady Detective Agency, assisting with the investigation of a magician. He is then assigned to the case of neurotic Georges Tabard (Michel Lonsdale), and ends up working in the stock room of his shoe store. After Antoine has coffee with Tabard's beautiful and intelligent wife, Fabienne (Delphine Seyrig), she inevitably tries to seduce him. He later meets Christine in a park and proposes to her, taking the pair into the next film: Bed and Board. One of the lightest entries in the series, Stolen Kisses was ironically filmed during a turbulent political time in France.

Features
  • New digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
  • Introduction by film historian Serge Toubiana, discussing the genesis of the film and the tumultuous events surrounding the 1968 removal of Henri Langlois as director of the Cinémathèque Française
  • Excerpt from the TV show Cinéastes de Notre Temps: François Truffaut, Dix Ans, Dix Films, in which Truffaut discusses his vision of the Doinel cycle, and the complex relationship between Doinel and actor Jean-Pierre Léaud
  • Archival newsreel footage of the "Langlois Affair"
  • Promotional spot featuring Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut appealing for public support of Langlois
  • Newsreel footage of Truffaut's impassioned rally to shut down the 1968 Cannes Film Festival in support of striking students and workers
  • Theatrical trailer
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • RSDL dual-layer edition
See Also
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