Oft claimed as his most Hitchcockian work, François Truffaut’s morbid suspenser THE BRIDE WORE BLACK/’68 doesn’t approach the bravura looting in this slightly bonkers l’amour fou from the following year. Taken from a Cornell Woolrich novel, it’s very fou indeed, as a recently married Jean-Paul Belmondo wakes up to find he’s been taken to the cleaners by new wife Catherine Deneuve, history’s most unlikely mail-order bride. Left flat on his tropical island plantation, Belmondo teams up with the sister of his missing real bride to hire Marcel Berbert’s unflappable private dick. Objectionably stalwart, he’ll track down the no-show bride; the imposter who took her place; and the stolen cash. With plot & character elements lifted out of the Hitchcock canon (lots of MARNIE*, SUSPICION and that painted coif in VERTIGO), Truffaut happily throws plausibility to the winds (plausibility a particular pet peeve to Hitch), especially in the second half when Belmondo (having chased Deneuve all the way to France) reunites with his undeserving spouse, giving passion precedent over self-preservation, and rapture proving contagious by the end. Not well received on release, and easy to see why (perhaps the modern setting a mistake, along with the abrupt Truffaut manner), but there’s madness to Truffaut’s method. And should that not work for you, Deneuve is so drop-dead gorgeous, you may not care.
DOUBLE-BILL: The Woolrich story was reused to steamy purpose for Antonio Banderas & Angelina Jolie in ORIGINAL SIN/’01. (not seen here)
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *If you ever wondered how Hitchcock’s troublesome MARNIE/’64 might play with a truly beautiful woman who knew how to act, here’s your chance.
No comments:
Post a Comment