Plein Soleil (Purple Noon)

This beautiful Studio Canal funded restoration, for the new cinema release and for the first time on Blu-ray, really does credit to Henri Dacae’s[1] cinematography genuinely bringing to life the scenery and the pretty boy looks of its lead actor Alain Delon.  Delon, in his first major film, plays Tom Ripley in this early adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley. It was of course adapted again when the late Anthony Minghella directed it in 1999 under its original title, but this time featuring Matt Damon as Ripley, Jude Law as Greenleaf and Gwyneth Paltrow as Marge. 

The French director Rene Clement directed this 1960 version and as well as Delon it included Maurice Ronet as Greenleaf and the attractive Marie Laforet played Marge[2] in her debut role. We are also treated to a brief uncredited appearance from Romy Schneider, who at the time was Delon’s squeeze.

 

Greenleaf, his girlfriend Marge and Tom Ripley.

Ripley is in Italy under the pretext of returning Paul Greenleaf back to America to become part of the family business, if he succeeds with this task he will get $5000 for his trouble. But Greenleaf will not return and is quite happy living a life of luxury swanning around the Italian Riviera and sailing his lavish yacht with his girlfriend Marge. This life style, and Marge, is a great attraction to Ripley who, while at sea, stabs and kills Greenleaf disposing of his body at sea. When he finally gets to shore he begins a deception that he hopes will allow him to share in the opulence that he craves so much.  Until the murder the story is quite ponderous, after that it picks up and develops into an absorbing wee thriller where we watch the clever Ripley live his double life, even hiding Greenleaf’s demise from the rather gullible Marge.

 

Is this Paul Greenleaf or Tom Ripley?

An interesting extra on the Blu-ray is an interview with Alain Delon 55 years after he made this film, a film that put him firmly on the pathway to fame. He tells us that that he learnt more from working with Rene Clement than from some of the other world famous directors he worked with like Visconti, Antonioni, Melville, Losey or Godard. Clement treated his actors like human beings and not like commodities. Originally he was cast as Greenleaf and Jacques Charrier was cast as Ripley. Charrier was married to Brigitte Bardot and she was pregnant with her first and only child, it was to be with her that he cancelled his contract. Delon, with the help of Clement’s wife Bella, persuaded the director to let him play Ripley, and the rest is history. 

 

Will Marge discover the deception?

Said to have influenced many other directors, Plein Soleil (1960) was adapted by Clement and Paul Gegauff. It does in fact have subtle differences from the Minghella version and the novel. It uses advanced technology for the times, especially the scenes on the boat. But the film belongs to Alain Delon; a naturally graceful actor with whom the camera was in love and for this reason if nothing else the film is well worth seeing. 

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[1] Strongly associated with the French New Wave.

[2] Her mother was always on set during the filming!

Spirits of the Dead (Histoires Extraordinaires)

This French/Italian co-production is a portmanteau movie with three short films based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe, an American author best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre.  An outstanding European director directs each one.

In Tim Lucas notes that accompany the 2011 release of the film on Blu-ray he opines that Histoires Extraordinaires (1968) ‘reinvented the cinema’s approach to Poe, and ultimately, the boundaries of the horror genre itself. Vincent Price was nowhere in sight; instead the films creators used the opportunity to reach back to an older, European tradition of using Poe as the basis of delirious, experimental, confessional cinema’[1]. He also argues that the three should be seen as a whole and not as individual films, and I would concur that the three films are certainly better enjoyed as a whole.

Roger Vadim’s (And God Created Woman 1956) Metzengerstein is the mesmerising first segment not set in any particular time span and stars his wife of the time Jane Fonda in a part that reinforces the fact that she was a strikingly beautiful and desirable actress.  In this wonderfully costumed drama Jane plays a character that Poe had cast as a 18 year old male in his original story but in Vadim’s screenplay she is a young women, the Countesse Frederique von Metzengerstain who has inherited the family estate and lives a life of promiscuity and debauchery, a sort of existence that Caligula would have been proud of. Her ancestors have always been rivals with another part of family called the Berlifitzings and who still it impossible to even talk with each other. One day while out in the forest hunting Frederique’s leg gets caught in a bear trap and fortunately her cousin Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing is also out riding and frees her. The Countesse craves an incestuous relationship with the good-looking young Baron, who is played by Jane’s brother Peter, which does add an edge to the screen portrayal, but he rejects her. Frederique decides to extract revenge on the man that had the audacity to turn down her advances. Her actions lead to a death, a reincarnation and a mystifying incident with a black horse and a damaged tapestry. Partly spoken partly narrated the movie is lushly photographed by Claude Renoir especially the opening scene where we see the Countesse and her entourage riding on the cliffs above Kerouzere Castle in Brittany and I’ve already mentioned the fabulous futuristic costumes designed by Jacques Fonteray.  Is your fate predetermined?

 The Countesse Frederique von Metzengerstain

The penultimate segment is an intriguing piece of work directed by the French director Louis Malle (Lift to the Scaffold 1958) and is set in 19th century France and told in flashback. Atheist William Wilson, played by French heartthrob Alain Delon, enters a church and forces his way into the confessional demanding that the priest take his confession. The Malle co-scripted film tells the story of a cold-hearted sadist who claims he is being pursued by a doppelgänger who goes by the same name, William Wilson! One of his flashbacks involves a card game with a beautiful cigar smoking woman Giuseppina, a man in Poe's original story, but there's no mistaking Brigitte Bardot even with black hair. After an all night card session she eventually looses to Wilson who ends up whipping her after the other Wilson has appeared and accused him of cheating at cards. The ultimate nightmare is indeed a nightmare about a nightmare?

The cigar smoking Giuseppina.

William Wilson!

Like William Wilson in the previous segment Toby Dammit is a gambling man but unlike Wilson his bet is always with the devil with whom he wagers his head! Inspired by Mario Bava's devil in Kill Baby Kill (1966) the apparition takes the form of a young girl with white blond hair wearing a simple white dress holding a luminous ball that she bounces towards him in slow motion. This final segment was originally to be directed by Orson Wells who pulled out at the last minute to direct an uncompleted project in Yugoslavia. Instead Federico Fellini was asked to direct in his place. Fellini decided on a Poe story called Never Bet the Devil Your Head, set it in a contemporary setting, which as Tim Lucas points out was transformed into 'a bizarre, acid tinged, three ringed circus - the closest the cinema has come to bring Peter Blake's amazing Sgt Peppers album cover to life'[2] And who better to play a bizarre acid tinged character than Terence Stamp. Dammit is a famous actor who is loosing his career to the ravages of alcohol and drugs but is still convinced of his own celebrity status and agrees to travel to Rome to appear in a film where his fee is to be a brand new Ferrari. A guest of honor at a film award evening he drinks too much and has visions of a young girl holding a large luminous ball that ultimately leads to him completely loosing his head. He blew his mind out in a car[3].  

 

Toby Dammit.

Although all three work very well, Fellini’s segment is the most surreal of the three films and probably the best known. Similarities between the three are purely coincidental but what we get is a great example of sixties European film making from some of the eras best directors and best known actors and actresses. The original film made its theatrical debut in Paris in 1968 but did not do remarkably well in the box office. American International Pictures bought the distribution rights for the US, changed its name to Spirits of the Dead and released it in July 1969,it was the first horror movie released in America to carry an ‘R’ rating. This collectively splendid piece of cinematic film history will not immediately appeal to every one but if, like me, you are prepared to give it a go you will be justifiably rewarded in this world if not the next!

Never bet the devil your head!

                                                                              

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[1] Tim Lucas Blu-ray Booklet 2011.

[2] Tim Lucas Blu-ray Booklet 2011.

[3] A Day in the Life 1967. Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

La Piscine

Romy Schneider

Alain Delon

A sensual and good looking slice of late sixties psychological drama almost totally based around the swimming pool in the grounds of a luxurious villa on the outskirts of the French resort that originally gave us Brigitte Bardot, St Tropez. Directed by Jacques Deray his 1969 film La Piscine (The Swimming Pool) stars ex-couple Alain Delon and Romy Schneider as lovers Jean-Paul and Marianne who are spending a lazy sun-drenched summer in this magnificent villa. All goes lovingly until Marianne invites her ex-lover Harry (Maurice Ronet) who brings along his 18-year-old nubile daughter Penelope (Jane Birkin) complete with very long legs and pouting ‘come and kiss me’ lips. As you can probably guess, from the first moment following there arrival a certain amount of uneasiness and tension arises between the hot-blooded quartet that escalates into a ‘dangerous love game’. A typical swinging sixties art house movie, full of tension, sexual longing and testosterone, beautifully filmed, never rushing its narrative, a scrumptious treat.

Jane Birkin