The ’80s were great for a lot of reasons. Okay, mostly the furs, but you could also make movies where Nazis were the bad guys without some whiny bitches on Twitter complaining about it. So let’s take a ride on The Last Metro and hope no one shows up in the comments to claim that at least it always arrived on time.
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The Last Metro (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
Format: Blu-ray
The Last Metro – The Film
It’s 1942 in Nazi-occupied Paris, and theatre goes on. This story is about the Théâtre Montmartre, focused chiefly on the owner Marion Steiner (Catherine Deneuve), her husband, Lucas, hiding in the basement, and recent hire Bernard, who did not add “part-time Resistance fighter” to his CV. That fact will complicate everyone’s lives. That Marion is falling in love with him seems relatively minor in comparison.
The Last Metro – The Furs
We start in Paris in 1942, City of Lights Brown. Wow, is this movie brown from the lighting, the sets, and especially the furs. We find Arlette (Andréa Ferréol) trying to get to work while being hounded by this chubby shithead. She’s wearing a brown fur coat that I’m not sure exactly what it is.
Chubby shithead turns out to be Bernard, so things get awkward when they end up at the same destination after Arlette rebuffs his advances. Arlette isn’t into chubby shitheads in general, but notably not if they’re male. The coat could be some kind of sable or mink, or maybe one of those ‘off-brand’ browns like muskrat or nutria. Feel free to make your guess in the comments.
Marion is doing theatre owner stuff at the theatre that evening. I’m pretty sure this is mink, and it’s also brown. Please note the developing pattern.
Next up, we have the default ‘best’ fur in the film. In this case, the bar is pretty low. This is Marion in a red fabric coat with a relatively large cross fox trim/collar.
Basically, they found the brownest fox possible and used that. Yes, I will take brown fox over brown-anything-else, but you’re stretching my tolerances here. In this rear shot, we see just how big it is.
I won’t bother stuffing this update with twenty pics of Marion’s mink coat. This film is notable for the amount of fur in it; however brown that fur is, and there is a lot of it.
I will highlight one short scene where Marion and Arlette put on their furs to head home for the night. Could they be heading home on… the last metro? Yeah, yeah, they are. Read the Wikipedia article; it explains the title.
Finally, we have the last brown fur, Marion’s sable. I suspect there are big sable fans in the audience, so this is a good flick for you. Like most other brown furs, this one gets lots of screen time, though not as much as the mink.
A couple of other mentions. This is Sabine Haudepin as Nadine, a small roll but where she shows up at a nightclub in this probable leopard, maybe ocelot fur coat.
Wait, hold up! Here are the best furs in the film! They’re a couple of lovely, lively fox furs, relegated to a brief background appearance hanging in the coat check of the same nightclub. Well, now this is a five-star film! The cute coat check girl steals them and glams out in my headcanon.
I suspect I’ve mentioned I am not a fan of brown fur. So, clearly, this is not my favorite film. It is, however, very notable in general because of the sheer amount of fur, almost 20 minutes, no matter how brown it may be. And, of course, I recognize that my taste is not universal (however shocking that may be), and others will certainly appreciate the amount of time they can spend with Catherine Deneuve in mink and sable. The 15% ratio is particularly impressive for a film with a +2-hour runtime.
Fur Runtime: approx 19 mintues
Film Runtime: 131 minutes
On-Screen Fur Ratio: 14%
Find-a-Fur: The Last Metro, 1980
(all times are approximate, all colors are exact)
- 03:20 – 05:10 – brown
- 12:30 – 23:40 – brown
- 26:31 – brown
- 30:20 – brown
- 39:20 – brown
- 44:45 – brown
- 46:45 – brown
- 54:40 – brown
- 59:35 – brown
- 1:03:05 – 1:06:20 – brown
- 1:14:10 – brown
- 1:16:00 – spots
- 1:22:40 – brown
- 1:37:00 – brown
- 1:47:20 – 1:50:00 – brown
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