The Heavenly Bodies () is a Canadian-French comedy film, directed and co-written by Gilles Carle and released in 1973.Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. . p. 96. The film stars Donald Pilon as Desmond, a pimp in Quebec in 1938 who moves to a rural mining town with a group of prostitutes to open a brothel in a decrepit old hotel, amid the early warning signs about the approaching outbreak of World War II.Charles-Henri Ramond, "Corps célestes, Les – Film de Gilles Carle". Films du Québec, January 2, 2009.
The cast also includes Micheline Lanctôt, Carole Laure, Jacques Dufilho and Yvon Barrette.
Due to the film's temporal setting, recordings of Adolf Hitler are heard on radio broadcasts at various points in the film, although the conclusion transcends time to communicate a message of hope by incorporating audio clips of much later political figures such as John F. Kennedy and Pierre Trudeau.Dr. J. Leach, "The Sins of Gilles Carle". Cinema Canada, March 1977.
The film was positively reviewed by critics. Dane Lanken of the Montreal Gazette called it Carle's best film,Dane Lanken, "Heaven-sent comedy". Montreal Gazette, September 26, 1973. while critics in France reviewed the film favourably but called it a creative step down from Carle's The Death of a Lumberjack (Le Mort d'un bûcheron)."Paris critics praise movie from Quebec". The Province, February 12, 1974. However, the film fared poorly with audiences, making far less at the box office than The Death of a Lumberjack.
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