Word: petition
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Against the backdrop of Paris, where people seem more interesting anyway, the superb German film Mon Petit tells a love story--"sometimes funny, sometimes sad"--which is consistently wonderful to watch. From the moment director Helmut Kautner appears to introduce his audience to "out boy and girl" until he walks down the boulevard at the end, his masterful hand changes ordinary into unique, ennui into comedy, sex into lyricism, and Paris into the colors of Cezanne...
...path, yawning at each other with remarks such as, "Is this your lighter that I found under my pillow, or does it belong to Jacques?" While these two sip cognac in a fancy burlesque, "our two" gulp coffee at a sidewalk cafe. Both women call their lovers "Mon Petit." When one Mon Petit loses his duck, Napoleon, the other Mon Petit wonders why anyone would bother to put a string around a duckling's neck. This dichotomy arises often enough to keep continuity, it adds tart to the essentially sweet story, but it never becomes oppressive...
While Mon Petit may play with reality, the audience remains aware that this is fiction, even surrealistic fiction. To heighten this effect, Kautner limits his palette so that orange (the oranges), black (the sophisticates), white (our boy and girl), and grey (the edifices of Paris) predominate. And, of course, the characters seem too attractive to be realistic. Horst Bucholz especially stands out as a sort of Jimmy Dean for the quality trade...
...fault is to be found, it lies in the rather contrived climax. But even this mars Mon Petit only superficially...
Under Mississippi law, grand and petit juries are drawn from lists of citizens who have registered and paid poll tax. Among the 8,836 Negroes of Carroll County, Miss. (pop. 15,448), where Goldsby was indicted and tried, there is not one registered voter-hence, no qualified Negro juror. Twenty-two other Mississippi counties with similarly heavy Negro populations are also without Negro voters. Taking note of these statistics, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard T. Rives, Alabama-born, ordered Goldsby retried within eight months (after the Supreme Court ruling) before "a legally constituted jury" (i.e., one chosen from a panel from...