"Hollywoodland" cast member Ben Affleck looks down the red carpet at the premiere of the film at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.

Ben Affleck wasn't sure the French would get the jokes in "Gone Baby Gone," a story of two private detectives searching for an abducted 4-year-old girl in the seamy side of Boston, so he was almost speechless after the film got a standing ovation from the Deauville Film Festival audience.

    "They really seemed to like it," Affleck said Wednesday. "It was the first time anyone saw it, and I didn't know how the jokes about parties in Lynn being better than parties in Everett would play subtitled in French. Or the ones about stealing jet skis and going up to New Hampshire. But even if they didn't get it, they still seemed to appreciate it."

    "Gone Baby Gone" is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote "Mystic River" which Clint Eastwood brought to the screen in 2003. Affleck's brother Casey plays one of the private eyes alongside Michelle Monaghan, star of "Mission Impossible III," in the drama filmed in working-class Boston.

    Affleck co-wrote the script with Aaron Stockard. He said he decided to debut the flick in France because the Deauville fest is small but influential. ("Little Miss Sunshine" won the festival's grand prize last year.)

    "We heard a lot of great things about it," he said. "And it's really focused on the movies, not who shows up or the kind of glitz of it."

    Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman play two police officers who help the pair in their search for the missing girl.

    The annual Deauville festival of American cinema ends Sunday, with the awarding of the Grand Prize and Jury Prize.

Actors Ben Affleck (L) and Jennifer Garner take their seats before the MLB American League baseball game between the Red Sox and the New York Yankees at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts.

2007-09-06