After finally being able to watch an English Subtitled version of the magnificent Film Noir The She-Wolves (1957),I was told by fellow IMDber dbdumonteil about another Boileau-Narcejac adaptation,this time by Henri Decoin. Finding Decoin's Beating Heart (1940) to be very elegant, I got set to find out where the truth lies.
View on the film:
Gliding along the floor towards François like a Gothic Horror queen, Juliette Gréco gives a mesmerising performance as Myriam. Calling François over to her as a Femme Fatale siren,Gréco keeps Myriam's spikes pointed,with every abrasive off-the-cuff line she unleashes,increasing François's lust for her. Holding François and maid Ronga (played by a very good Mathé Mansoura in her lone credit-one of the few times a black person is given a prominent role) from entering her personal space, Gréco holds Myriam's cards tight,and pulls on the ambiguity of no one being able to get up close and personal with her.
Finding more than a leopard when he visits to care for Myriam's pet, Jean-Marc Bory gives an excellent turn as Film Noir loner François, whose fresh-faced innocent love for his wife Bory chisels down to fear and lust over the spell Myriam's cast on his heart. Finding her husband to become distant,Liselotte Pulver tenderly has Catherine sink into a sickness which raises François doubts over his secret love.
Tightening the web Myriam and François are held in, co-writer/(with Albert Husson) director Henri Decoin crisply adapts Boileau-Narcejac's novel, (which runs as an extended flashback,left out in the film version) with the writers exploring the paranoia at the heart of all Boileau-Narcejac adaptation, via François never being fully relaxed around Myriam and always having his back up against the wall, held in a vice-like grip of doubt by the writers,over the at face value love from Myriam. Holding Catherine up ill in bed, the writers turn the screws on Myriam's tropical past and unravel her suspected spells that cast out to François the choice to sink or swim in the Film Noir ocean.
Filmed on Noirmoutier Island at a time when the only way to reach the island was via a periodically flooded causeway called The Passage Du Gois (a bridge was built in 1971) director Henri Decoin & cinematographer Marcel Grignon fly above the Gois in a dazzling opening shot that brings impending doom onto the island. On the Film Noir shore, Decoin stylishly uses strands of light (backed by a sharp, Jazzy score from Pierre Henry) to brew a supernatural (not horror) atmosphere transfixing François. Leaving the Noir open-ended, Decoin follows François in a wide shot to where the truth lies.
View on the film:
Gliding along the floor towards François like a Gothic Horror queen, Juliette Gréco gives a mesmerising performance as Myriam. Calling François over to her as a Femme Fatale siren,Gréco keeps Myriam's spikes pointed,with every abrasive off-the-cuff line she unleashes,increasing François's lust for her. Holding François and maid Ronga (played by a very good Mathé Mansoura in her lone credit-one of the few times a black person is given a prominent role) from entering her personal space, Gréco holds Myriam's cards tight,and pulls on the ambiguity of no one being able to get up close and personal with her.
Finding more than a leopard when he visits to care for Myriam's pet, Jean-Marc Bory gives an excellent turn as Film Noir loner François, whose fresh-faced innocent love for his wife Bory chisels down to fear and lust over the spell Myriam's cast on his heart. Finding her husband to become distant,Liselotte Pulver tenderly has Catherine sink into a sickness which raises François doubts over his secret love.
Tightening the web Myriam and François are held in, co-writer/(with Albert Husson) director Henri Decoin crisply adapts Boileau-Narcejac's novel, (which runs as an extended flashback,left out in the film version) with the writers exploring the paranoia at the heart of all Boileau-Narcejac adaptation, via François never being fully relaxed around Myriam and always having his back up against the wall, held in a vice-like grip of doubt by the writers,over the at face value love from Myriam. Holding Catherine up ill in bed, the writers turn the screws on Myriam's tropical past and unravel her suspected spells that cast out to François the choice to sink or swim in the Film Noir ocean.
Filmed on Noirmoutier Island at a time when the only way to reach the island was via a periodically flooded causeway called The Passage Du Gois (a bridge was built in 1971) director Henri Decoin & cinematographer Marcel Grignon fly above the Gois in a dazzling opening shot that brings impending doom onto the island. On the Film Noir shore, Decoin stylishly uses strands of light (backed by a sharp, Jazzy score from Pierre Henry) to brew a supernatural (not horror) atmosphere transfixing François. Leaving the Noir open-ended, Decoin follows François in a wide shot to where the truth lies.