The filming of "Dorothée cherche l'amour", a symbol of the difficult recovery of French cinema after the Second World War

After several years without making a film, he should be all fired up, but here he is, moping: a heartache is eating away at the morale of director Edmond T. Gréville. A certain Marion Malville, a second-rate actress, is driving him crazy and, instead of rejoicing at finally finding the adrenaline of a film set, this 39-year-old married man is obsessed by his private torments, as can be read in his Memoirs ( Thirty-five Years in the Jungle of Cinema , Actes Sud) published in 1995, almost thirty years after his death.

In June 1945, Edmond T. Gréville began work on his new feature film, Dorothée cherche l'amour , at the Victorine studios in his hometown of Nice. The Parisian studios, undergoing a purge, had not yet reopened, a boon for the Riviera city, which hosted four film shoots that summer after years of hardship. The feature film tells the story of a selfish old billionaire who is denied entry to heaven by God. He is sent back to Earth to make amends by guiding a young girl in search of love through her romantic adventures.

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