''Two Weeks in September'' (French title: ''À coeur joie''; also known as ''Joy-hearted'') is a 1967 British-French

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by Serge Bourguignon and starring

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying characters with Hedonism, hedonistic life ...

, Laurent Terzieff, Jean Rochefort and

James Robertson Justice James Robertson Justice (15 June 1907 – 2 July 1975) was a British actor. He often portrayed pompous authority figures in comedies, including each of the seven films in the ''Doctor'' series. He also co-starred with Gregory Peck in seve ...

Plot

Model Cecile spends two weeks away from her older lover Philippe and is tempted by a younger man.

Cast

as Cécile * Laurent Terzieff as Vincent * Jean Rochefort as Philippe *

as McClintock *

Michael Sarne Michael Sarne (born Michael Scheuer; 6 August 1940) is a British actor, singer, writer, producer and director, who also had a brief career as a pop singer in the 1960s. Sarne directed the films ''Joanna'' (1968) and '' Myra Breckinridge'' (19 ...

as Dickinson * Georgina Ward as Patricia * Carole Lebel as Monique * Annie Nicolas as Chantal *

Murray Head Murray Seafield St George Head (born 5 March 1946) is an English actor and singer. Head has appeared in a number of films, including a starring role as the character Bob Elkin in the BAFTA award winning and Oscar-nominated 1971 film ''Sunday B ...

as Dickinson's assistant

Production

The film was the sixth in a series of movies financed jointly by the Rank Organization and the NFFC. British companies provided 30% of the budget; French companies provided 70%. It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and on location around

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Scenes for the film were also shot on the beach at

Gullane Gullane ( or ) is a town on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth in East Lothian on the east coast of Scotland. There has been a church in the village since the ninth century. The ruins of the Old Church of St. Andrew built in the twel ...

East Lothian East Lothian (; ; ) is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a Counties of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area. The county was called Haddingtonshire until 1921. In ...

in September 1966. The principal cast stayed at the Open Arms in Dirletonbr>

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features two songs in English, "Do You Want to Marry Me?" and "I Must Tell You Why", with music by

Michel Magne Michel Magne (20 March 1930 in Lisieux, Calvados, France – 19 December 1984 in Cergy-Pontoise, Val-d'Oise) was a French film and experimental music composer. Early life He was the fifth child in a family of eight. As young as age five, h ...

and vocals sung by

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined in 1967, shortly before the departure of the founder member Syd Barrett. By the early 1980s, Pink F ...

, working as a session musician with his band Jokers Wild, before he joined

Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experiments ...

Reception

Critical

The Monthly Film Bulletin The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...

'' wrote: "Supremely ludicrous amalgam of all the clichés of women's magazine fiction, flashily photographed, and directed by Serge Bourguignon at a snail's pace and in a style that fully matches the inanities of the plot. The dialogue (rendered in Franglais) produces some of the best unconsciously funny lines for a long time, none better perhaps than kilted Scottish laird James Robertson Justices embarrassed explanation to the young lovers in his ruined castle that his tape-recorder is only supposed to be set off by a certain frequency emitted by birds – "And it would appear, madam, that you made exactly the same noise." There's a fashion photographer who tells his models to "hate me a little", a photographic session amid the pink deckchairs of a London park, and a whole succession of close-ups of Bardot in various stages of undress, including one of her in a bubble bath opining that "happiness is just drops of water". It might almost be a parody. But a film which signals a passionate love scene on a bed of straw in a ruined castle by a cut to waves pounding on a beach is obviously in deadly earnest." "Two hours wasted" said the ''Los Angeles Times''. The film received very poor reviews overall.Petrie p 14

Box office

The film was a

box office disappointment A box-office bomb is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the combined production budget, marketing, and distribution costs exceed the revenue after release has te ...

References

Notes

External links

*
''Two Weeks in September''
at

TCMDB Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of ...

''Two Weeks in September''
then-and-now location photographs a
ReelStreets
1960s French-language films Films directed by Serge Bourguignon French romantic drama films British romantic drama films 1967 films Films shot in Scotland Films shot in East Lothian Films set in London Films shot in London Films shot at Billancourt Studios David Gilmour 1960s British films 1960s French films Films scored by Michel Magne {{1960s-France-film-stub