The director of this movie was lucky not to get sued for mallepractice. It was a somewhat bizarre entry after Lift To The Scaffold, The Lovers and Zazie In The Metro but maybe like Jill, his heroine, he was feeling jaded. It was a full decade after Meet Danny Wilson in which Sinatra played a character very much like himself so chances are that Malle and Jean-Paul Rappeneau figured that 1) not many people saw Meet Danny Wilson in the first place (it was made at a time that Sinatra couldn't get arrested) and 2) those that did see it had probably long forgotten it so why not do something close to Bardot's own life. Putting two iconic stars in one film can, of course, pay off - if the stars are Tracey and Hepburn, Powell and Loy or even Grant and (Audrey) Hepburn - but pairing Bardot and Mastroianni was like pairing Mother Teresa with Mahatma Ghandi. Nice photography though.
Review of A Very Private Affair
