Allo la France review – romance of French phone booths exposes funding cuts to rural services

In an endearingly whimsical road trip documentary, Floriane Devigne takes calls from her interview subjects in the last remaining phone boxes dotted across rural France The humble telephone box, a souvenir from the days of analogue, can also be an intriguing cinematic locus. Floriane Devigne’s road trip documentary begins with such a relic: the last public phone booth in Paris, which also appears in Jacques Rivette’s mesmerising 1981 film Le Pont du Nord. Unlike their Instagrammable British counterparts, French phone boxes are usually painted in a demure grey and blend seamlessly with their surroundings. As it moves from the capital city to more remote areas, Devigne’s film observes the vanishing of a formerly essential utility as her cross-country odyssey sparkles with an endearing whimsicality. Instead of using talking heads, Devigne ducks into various phone boxes scattered across France, as she takes calls from her interview subjects. Stories of love and longing fill these unassum...

Mitzi Gaynor, dancer and actor from South Pacific, dies aged 93

One of the few survivors of the golden age of the Hollywood musical also appeared in We’re Not Married and There’s No Business Like Show Business

Mitzi Gaynor, the dancer and actor who starred as Nellie Forbush in the 1958 film of South Pacific and appeared in other musicals with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, has died. She was 93.

Gaynor, among the last survivors of the so-called golden age of the Hollywood musical, died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Thursday morning, her longtime managers, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, confirmed in a statement.

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