Christine

Christine is a 1958 French-Italian melodrama directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit. It adapts Arthur Schnitzler's 1895 play Liebelei (Flirtation), which had already been filmed in 1933 by Max Ophüls — in that earlier version, the heroine was played by Magda Schneider, mother of this film's star, Romy Schneider.

The story follows a young couple — Christine and a young lieutenant, played by Alain Delon — whose shared happiness is cut short by tragedy. Alongside Schneider and Delon, the cast includes Micheline Presle, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Fernand Ledoux. Filming took place at Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, and the film premiered in Germany in December 1958.

Although the picture does not rank among the major works of its stars' careers, it holds a special place in film history: it was on this production that Romy Schneider and Alain Delon met and began the romance that made them one of European cinema's most iconic couples.