The Story of a Three Day Pass
Melvin Van Peebles’s edgy, angsty, romantic first feature could never have been made in America. Unable to break into segregated Hollywood, Van Peebles decamped to France, taught himself the language, and wrote a number of books in French, one of which, La permission, would become the stylistically innovative The Story of a Three Day Pass. Turner (Harry Baird), an African American soldier stationed in France, is granted a promotion and a three-day leave from base by his casually racist commanding officer and heads to Paris, where he finds whirlwind romance with a white woman (Nicole Berger)—but what happens to their love when his furlough is over? Channeling the brash exuberance of the French New Wave, Van Peebles creates an exploration of the psychology of an interracial relationship as well as a commentary on France’s contradictory attitudes about race that is playful, sarcastic, and stingingly subversive by turns, and that laid the foundation for the scorched-earth cinematic revolution he would let loose just a few years later.
Available In
Collector's Set
Cast
- Harry Baird
- Turner
- Nicole Berger
- Miriam
- Hal Brav
- Captain
- Christian Marin
- Hotel clerk
- Pierre Doris
- Farmer
- Tria French
- Madame Abernathy
Credits
- Director
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Screenplay and dialogue by
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Based on the novel La permission by
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Executive producer
- Gaston Doha
- Music by
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Mickey Baker
- Director of photography
- Michel Kelber
- Technical consultant
- Georges Lussan
- Editor
- Liliane Korb
- Sound engineer
- Gerard Brisseau
- Production manager
- Gilbert Marion
- Makeup
- Aida Carange
Trailer for The Story of a Three Day Pass
