Reviews

I'm old enough to have seen this film on its release in the cinemas, and, whilst it's not easy to think of a film these days being a success unless millions have been spent on it, this film hung on two superlative performances from Alec Guinness and Peter Finch and the screenplay was worth two of anything you'd hear today. So why, I ask, has it not been released on DVD for a new generation to enjoy? Is it thought too dated? Not exciting enough? Too cerebral? Not a bit of it. It's a thoroughly enjoyable film with moments of high tension and a supporting cast rich in character (including Bernard Lee who was the first M in the Bond films)

Scott Fitzgerald drew on his own experience of his marriage with Zelda to paint this haunting and often frightening portrait of a relationship foundering on the rocks of social and financial success. Peter Strauss gives a career best performance as Dick Diver, a successful psychiatrist, who can't do a thing to prevent the alcohol-fuelled mental decline of his wife (Mary Steenburgen). There are moments of sheer Fitzgerald brilliance, for example, the speech given by Diver to friends at a candle-lit dinner party in front of his Cote d'Azure villa. The supporting cast is fine, including a then little known Jean Reno who's since gone on to do worse things.

The great pity of this work is that it's only available in France in a version without sub-titles. I had the great pleasure of seeing the whole series on British television in the early '70s, and the recommendation is not to see it at all unless you can own a copy. It is worth learning French for. The giant figure of Jean Piat presides over the action of the story and his political ambition provides the motive power for it. It is not his character, Robert D'Artois, though, who supplies the pretext. That falls to the character of Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, whose order King Philip the Fair persecutes with the object of obtaining its wealth and replenish the depleted coffers of the French Crown. The old man is burned at the stake on the Isle St. Louis and with his dying breath curses the French King to the thirteenth generation of his line. The story progresses rapidly through treachery, adultery, painful public executions, strangulation, poisoning, sorcery, apostasy, and more and culminates at the first action of the Hundred Years War between England and France. All is put in train (with a smile and a gallic shrug) by Robert D'Artois. Jean Piat's performance is pivotal but by no means the only good thing in this medieval trinket-box. Louis Seigner and Helene Duc as Tolomei the Banker and Mahaut D'Artois respectively, give performances ,parts of which I remember vividly even now after thirty years. For those who cannot get hold of this series, read the book!