Underplayed Gems
The whole movie catalogue

Films and series, searchable by what they are

← Back to the shop

Bel Ami (1971)

Bel Ami poster
Genre
drama
Country
United Kingdom
Length
1 season, 5 episodes
Rating
10.0 of 10 from 1 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb

How it feels

A penniless man in Paris uses his charm and a series of affairs to climb the social ladder. The story follows his ruthless pursuit of power and status through exploitative relationships.

satiricalbitingopportunisticperiod-setmanipulativecynicalsharply observedcomedic

What happens

Bel Ami is a British five part television costume drama based on the 1885 French novel Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant. It aired in 1971 on BBC 2. The series starred Robin Ellis as Georges Duroy, Suzanne Neve as Madeleine Forestier, Garfield Morgan as Jacques Rivat, Elvi Hale as Clotilde de Marelle, Margaret Courtenay as Madame Walter, John Bryans as Monsieur Walter, Maurice Quick as Duroy's manservant, Peter Sallis as Norbert de Varenne, James Cossins as Forestier and Arthur Pentelow as Tattel. British television historian Claire Monk wrote, "BBC Two's five-part Bel Ami indicatively exhibited the sexual attitudes of its time in its makers' insistence that the story of penniless opportunist Georges Duroy— a social outsider in Parisian society who ruthlessly uses sex to pursue his ambitions— as basically a comedy with the charms of a fantasy world." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? Tell the Catbot what you feel like watching and it picks from the whole catalogue, or browse by genre, country and year.

Lists: Korean thrillers worth the evening · Anime films beyond Studio Ghibli · Slow films for a rainy night · Horror that unsettles instead of startling · Series you can finish in a weekend · Nordic crime worth the subtitles · Good films that end in under 90 minutes · Documentaries that play like thrillers

Loading movies…

What should I watch?