Stolen Kisses
Eight years after the wry romantic sketchAntoine and Colette, François Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Léaud reunited to catch up with Truffaut's cinematic alter ego, Antoine Doinel, the troubled adolescent ofThe 400 Blows.Stolen Kissesopens with the now-grown Doinel sprung from military prison with a dishonorable discharge, drawn directly from Truffaut's own history of delinquency, but the parallels end there. Lovesick Doinel woos the perky but unresponsive object of his affections, Christine (Claude Jade) while he engages in a series of professions--hotel night watchman, private investigator, TV repairman--with mixed success and comic entanglements. But when he falls in love with the elegant wife of his client (Delphine Seyrig at her most beautiful and charming), Christine realizes she misses Antoine's persistence and clumsy passes, so she embarks on a seductive plan of her own. Truffaut's comic confection is full of deadpan gags and screwball chaos, a world away from the heavy seriousness ofThe 400 Blows, and Léaud is endearingly naive as the  determined Doinel, forging ahead with more pluck and passion than aptitude. It may be Truffaut's most sweetly romantic film, a knowing man's embrace of eager innocence and storybook sentiment. Doinel returns two years later inBed and Board.--Sean Axmaker