The Mischief Makers

Les Mistons (The Mischief Makers, 1957) is an early François Truffaut short you can watch online on iFILM. Five boys in a small southern town are all hung up on the same young woman.

Their adoration sours into jealousy the second her sweetheart turns up. The pack tails the couple, spies on their picnics and cooks up petty schemes to split them apart. Bernadette Lafont, in her very first screen role, plays the object of all that hopeless longing, with Gérard Blain as the man they resent.

Eighteen minutes is all Truffaut needs to catch first love, cruelty and nostalgia in one breath. The teasing narration and restless camera already point toward the French New Wave he would help ignite two years later with The 400 Blows. Stream Les Mistons (1957) online on iFILM.