Summer views: Summertime, 1955

SUMMERTIME, 1955. David Lean’s entrancing film of Arthur Laurents’ “The Time of the Cuckoo” effortlessly draws one in again, no matter now many times one has seen it. I wonder though what it would be like if the homlier Shirley Booth, who played it on the stage, had re-created her role as Jane Hudson, the spinster secretary from Akron, Ohio, on the loose in Venice. Jane considers herself independent and happy to go it alone, but you can feel very alone in a strange, new beautiful city, we can feel her ache with loneliness among the crowds in the Piazza San Marco, then suddenly she is aware of the handsome man who is watching her … 

The angular Katharine Hepburn is fascinating here, whether shooting film with her camera, or (famously) falling into the canal. There is also of course the obliatory cute kid to show her around. She wears a fascinating collection of outfits too. Rosanno Brazzi is the very essence of a romantic handsome Italian to set any unmarried woman aflutter, even though it turns out he is married. The other American tourists are amusing cartoons, and Isa Miranda has the most fabuous little hotel with great rooms and views (actually a mix of different locations and a purpose-built set). At least the film catches Venice in the mid-50s before the endless tourists and giant cruise ships which may now be causing damage to the lagoon. 

Our lovers meet in his shop with those red glass goblets and soon he is taking her to Murano that island where the glass is made, she meets his son (Jeremy Spenser) too which makes her realise Vittorio is married. The climax as Jane leaves on the train, after that night of passion, endlessly waving goodbye is certainly an emotional one  … surely she won’t be going back to her old life back in Ohio? Surely Venice and her little romance has awakened her …. It is one of Lean’s perfectly shot and directed “little” films before he went for the larger canvas of his later opuses. Hepburn too scores one of her best ‘50s films.

Arthur Laurents though, at his waspish best, who wrote the original play “The Time of the Cuckoo” is less than enamoured with star and director in his memoir, writing that “Shirley (named Leona Samish) came by boat to Venice on a budget holiday, her clothes were bought on a secretary’s salary, and with an ordinary camera. Kate Hepburn’s Jane Hudson flew to Venice in gowns by Adrian. On arrival she whips out an expensive movie camera and proceeds to photograph everything in sight with the expertise of a professional. She comes to Venice to change outfits, flirt archly with a good-looking man, but preserve her very-long-held virginity at all costs. She does lose it – as a screenload of fireworks in the Venetian sky tells us – and to her surprise she likes what it takes to lose it. But at this point Jane decides to leave Venice... 

Why? Because the picture has gone on long enough. Her given reason is that she has always stayed too long at a party. The picture itself is a beautifully photographed travelogue, a coffee-table book on film. What little story it tells is mawkish and sentimental, made more so by the maudlin performance of its star whose weeping threatens to overflow the troubled canals. At the very end of the movie there is a moment, wonderfully shot and conceived, where Di Rossi runs frantically along a railway station platform with a flower for Jane, who is on a fast moving, departing train. He doesn’t catch up and she is left, looking back at him, her eyes leaking like an old faucet.... 

SUMMERTIME was moderately successful at the box office and Hepburn was nominated for an Oscar. The screenplay was credited to H E Bates, a first-rate English novelist, it should have been credited to Hepburn and Lean, true believers that stars can do anything they want, even write. In this aspect of the movie business they were unoriginal. 

Kate scored again though in 1956 with DESK SET (which I like a lot), from another play which Shirley Booth had originated on stage! She and Kate had become friends during the stage run of THE PHILADELPHIA STORY where Booth had played Kate Imbrie. Booth of course had won her own Oscar with COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA, from the William Inge play, in 1952 and also appeared in other films like THE MATCHMAKER (the origin of HELLO DOLLY). Laurents’ book is one of those fascinating show-biz memoirs, with all the best stories, including his long time relationship with Farley Granger.  

Venice scores here too, usually it is the background for death or plague as in DEATH IN VENICE or DON’T LOOK NOW….

B-movie heaven (2)

Another selection of pulpy crime thrillers, routine actioners, and some odd Euro-thrillers, not quite Trash but satisfyingly enjoyable, with those French thriller genre tough guys Henri Vidal and Robert Hossein, as well as Sterling Hayden and Steve Cochran and that tough dame Ruth Roman. Enjoy ...

Ruth Roman

THREE SECRETS, 1950. A nifty melodrama, one of Robert Wise’s early films. A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. 
As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son. The women are top-billed Eleanor Parker, rather pallid here; Patricia Neal as incisive as ever, and Ruth Roman who makes the most impression. It is nicely worked out and keeps one involved. The men pale by comparison: Frank Lovejoy, Arthur Franz, Leif Erickson, Ted de Corsia.

FIVE STEPS TO DANGER, 1957. While driving from California to New Mexico, Ann Nicholson picks up John Emmett at a truck stop. She is looking for someone else to share the driving with her so that she can get to her ultimate destination, Santa Fe, quicker. He agrees to accompany her, he being on a month long vacation and heading to a fishing lodge by bus in that general direction anyway. He soon begins to wonder if it was a good decision. They are first stopped by a nurse claiming that Ann is under medical psychological care, and then by the police who are looking for her for questioning on a serious incident back in Los Angeles. Because of these encounters, she tells him her story: that she is indeed recovering from a stress related condition, but that that stress was brought about by her need to get some politically sensitive military information to Santa Fe. 
Wavering between believing and not believing her story, John decides to trust her and go along with her as far as the story plays itself out, all the while the two being chased by various people. 
This plays marvellously with non-stop action ... it may even have inspired the look of PSYCHO ? - I was reminded of the scenes with Janet Leigh in the car and evading the policeman, while watching similar scenes here as we travel the highways and those cheap motels. Ruth Roman and Sterling Hayden are just right, and the plot teases until the end, as directed by Henry S. Kesler. 

TANGANYIKA, 1954. Movies with exotic names were a staple of 50s cinema, as programmers and actioners were set in places like TANGANYIKA, MARACAIBO, MOZAMBIQUE, EAST (or WEST) OF SUDAN - mostly filmed on the backlot, with second unit photography from Africa fitted in, as in Fox's WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (Susan Hayward label). Janet Leigh in her memoirs said they really went to Africa for SAFARI, a 1956 actioner with Victor Mature I remember seeing as a kid. It was hardly worth the journey. Here we have Ruth Roman again, with Van Heflin and Howard Duff, and lots of local colour with all those dancing and fighting natives in this obscure jungle adventure, directed by veteran Andre De Toth, he of the one eye. Roman comes across as a butcher Susan Hayward, Fox's regular action lady.

In 1903 Kenya, tough colonist John Gale is leading a safari to bring in escaped murderer Abel McCracken, who is stirring up the Nukumbi tribe and endangering Gale's holdings. En route, he picks up four survivors of Nukumbi raids: hunter Dan Harder, former teacher Peggy, and two kids. But Dan has hidden motives for coming along; and the Nukumbi are lying in wait.

One I must try to get hold of is JOE MACBETH, a '50s mobster version of Shakespeare with Paul Douglas and Ruth as a rather good Lady Macbeth, which I remember from seeing as a kid ... Ruth was later a staple on tv shows and is always - like Anne Baxter, Jane Russell, Dorothy Malone, Virginia Mayo, Martha Hyer, Vera Miles and other '50s gals - good value. Perhaps she is best remembered now in Hitch's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, 1951. We like her in the 1966 LOVE HAS MANY FACES which she practically steals from Lana Turner and those Acapulco beachboy gigolos. (Roman label).

MOZAMBIQUE, 1965. This routine, cheesy in a fun way, meller turned out to be the last film of tough guy Steve Cochran, who died that year. He looks fine here and does a lot of stunts in this Harry Alan Towers German production. An out-of-work and penniless American pilot is offered work in Mozambique and promptly becomes an unwitting pawn in a world of drug smuggling, kidnap and murder. Hildegarde Knef is rather good as Ilona Valdez, international woman of mystery (below) and chanteuse in a nightlcub, where she sings German songs to the African natives. Paul Hubschmid and vivacious Vivi Bach are also involved in the derring-do, its rather like a straight version of those Jean Dujardin OSS 117 send-ups. The definition of an amusing timewaster. Cochran was good too with Anne Baxter in CARNIVAL STORY in '54 and was immortalised by Antonioni as the lead in his IL GRIDO in 1957. (review at Antonioni label).

UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE (WHAT PRICE MURDER?), 1957. A delicious treat from French thriller veteran Henri Verneuil (see French label for reviews of MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, etc). Humble (or is he?) bank clerk Henri Vidal charms wealthy widow Isa Miranda but keeps her at arms length until she practically begs him to marry her .... her secretary is young Mylene Demongeot, whom Vidal is attracted to, but Mylene has her own plans. So who ends up killing who? and will Isa suspect what is going on ? This is brilliantly worked out, with a great twist one does not see coming, from a James Hadley Chase potboiler, and it all looks great in gleaming black and white. Isa has a great role, Mylene is as delicious as ever, and Vidal - this charming man - looks great. 
We like Vidal - from ATTILA in '54, and Clement's LES MAUDITS, as well as those films with Brigitte Bardot and Romy Schneider (Vidal label). What a contrast with Robert Hossein, that other tough French guy. Vidal died aged 40 in 1959 just as Delon and Belmondo were hitting their stride - (so also did Gerard Philipe, also dying in 1959). Hossein on the other hand, is stll here in his 80s and still working unitl recently after a long career. Delon and Belmondo and Trintignant may have been the main French idols, but Maurice Ronet, Jean Sorel and Robert Hossein had long careers too, in mainly action movies - like Franco Nero, Raf Vallone, Renato Salvatori, Vittoria Gassman in Italy. Isa Miranda,below.

TOI ... LE VENIN, (NIGHT IS NOT FOR SLEEP), 1958. This is a deliciously crazy movie, with a great premise. Robert Hossein is out walking late at night when a car pulls up and a blonde calls him over. She wants him to get in, he does and soon they are locked in an embrace, after she removes her top .... but she throws him out and tries to run him over. He manages to get the car number and traces it to a villa where two wealthy sisters live. One is crippled in a wheelchair, and is nursed by her sister. These are played by real-life sisters Marina Vlady (Hossein's wife at the time) and Odile Versois. Our laidback hero is soon caught in the middle between the two sisters, as he romances Odile and promises to stay and run their record store. 

The other sister in the wheelchair is also becoming dangerously obsessed with Robert, but he begins to suspect she is not disabled at all, but cannot prove it. How is all this going to end? Very satisfyingly is all I can say. We liked some other Hossein thrillers (as per my previous B-movie post on French thrillers), like LE MONT CHARGE, and THE WICKED GO TO HELL, which featured Vidal and Vlady. This one is just as good if not better. IMDb describes it as a "Panting psychological thriller", ably directed by Hossein.

DEATH OF A KILLER, (LA MORT  D'UN TUEUR) 1964. Not much fun here but this is the real deal - a tough, spare, tense thriller with Hossein (forever in his pork pie hat) released from prison and teaming up with his old gang, to find out who shopped him to the police just as they were carrying out a robbery. He suspects one gang member, Luciano who was in love with Hossein's attractive sister Marie-France Pisier, whom Hossein himself is also obsessed about. Mother back at home is weary Lila Kedrova, as Hossein and his pals begin to track down Luciano all over the city (it looks like Marseilles). 
Local gangland gets involved and there is a detour to a nightclub with some exotic black dancers (as in LA NOTTE and other chic nightclub scenes of the time) where Hossein gets off with a blonde (also Pisier). Then the shoot-out and all is revealed at the end. Its a film of great images and creates a great mood of fatalism, again also directed by Hossein. 

Soon: Hossein with Sophia Loren in MADAME, that rarity from 1961 ... and another look at Dassin's classic RIFIFI with Hossein and a great cast; and another steaming helping of Trash classics. 

French classics - 1

2 by Max Ophuls; 2 by Roger Vadim ...

LA RONDE, 1950. Anton Walbrook is the enigmatic, omnipotent master of ceremonies (also a head waiter) guiding us through a series of amorous encounters in the Vienna of 1900. Cue Ophuls' circular, serpentine camera movements through those lush sets ... One fleeting encounter leads to the next, partners change and the dance goes on, turning like the waltz and the carousel until the final vignette brings the story full circle. Featuring some of the great names of French cinema, Max Ophuls' wonderful adaptation of Schnitzler's play won Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and seen now is a timeless classic of French cinema. Max Ophuls of course is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most revered directors in the history of cinema; his trademark array of lavish, fluid camera movements have influenced many film-makers.  Using the image of the carousel, the narrator takes us through a series of love/lust stories which by 1950 standards are at times very explicit. An interesting notion is that it is about the spread of veneral disease from partner to partner, affecting all of society, from streetwalkers and soldiers up to the gentry, but in this Ophuls vision it is pleasure not pain which is passed on.

LA RONDE starts with the wonderfully world-weary Anton Walbrook and his carousel as street-walker Signoret offers a freebie to soldier in a hurry Serge Regianni who then dallies with pert Simone Simon who then is the maid leading on young Daniel Gelin who then romances married woman Danielle Darrieux, whose husband Ferdnand Gravey covets Odette Joyeux who falls for Jean-Louis Barrault, who then dallies with sophisticated actress Isa Miranda, who knows all the ways of love, particuarly when count Gerard Philipe calls .... he then meets the prostitute (Signoret) we met at the start. As in the teasing episode between young son of the house Gelin and parlour maid Simone Simon there is no sex on view, but the teasing anticipation and suggestion of it. 

MADAME DE ..., 1953.  In the Paris of the late 19th century, Louise, wife of a general, sells the earrings her husband gave her as a wedding gift: she needs money to cover her debts. The general secretly buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, Lola, leaving to go to Constantinople where an Italian diplomat, Baron Donati, buys them. Back to Paris, Donati meets Louise and presents her with the earrings, which she had claimed she lost. How can she keep them and fool her husband who of course knows she had sold them
.... It is a slight tale but Ophuls invests it with a world of emotion as the foolish wife learns to her cost. Charles Boyer as the husband, and Vittorio De Sica as the Baron are perfect in their roles as is Darrieux as the flightly Madame De  ... The earrings go back and forth until the husband declines to buy them a fourth time. We then progress to a duel ... The gliding camera-work pays loving attention to the period sets while our three leads act out their roles in this sublime film.

Ophuls (1902-1957) made the 1948 classic LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, and that classic pair in America, CAUGHT and THE RECKLESS MOMENT, both in 1949 with James Mason. LA RONDE followed in 1950, MADAME DE... in 1953, and his 1955 LOLA MONTES is his last final masterpiece. LE PLAISIR from 1952 is another of his to seek out. 

LA RONDE, 1964. Roger Vadim created a LA RONDE for the 1960s with his colour version, featuring a round-up of European players of the time, including Maurice Ronet, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean Sorel, Catherine Spaak, Anna Karina and  Marie Dubois, plus Mrs Vadim, Jane Fonda, and scripted by Jean Anouilh, and photographed by the great Henri Decae. Maurice Binder does a neat title sequence, the equal of his Bond titles. Updated to Art Nouveau 1914, just before World War One, it is light and undemanding and the cast look good, if rather too Sixities. 

LES LIAISIONS DANGEREUSES. Vadim's 1959, introduced by himself, looks terrific with those gleaming black and white images, with Jeanne Moreau and Gerard Philipe, plus Jean-Louis Trintignant and the latest Vadim girl Annette Stroyberg (rather a blank actually). Add in that score by Thelonius Monk.
Juliette Merteuil and Valmont are a sophisticated couple, always looking for fun and excitement. Both have sexual affairs with others and share their experiences with one another. But there is one rule: never fall in love. But this time Valmont falls madly in love with a girl he meets at a ski resort, Marianne.
 
Moreau is sensational here as the evil woman with designs on others and wanting her revenge (which of course backfires on her) for a perceived slight. This was considered sensational time, from the De Laclos novel, updated to the 1950s with that smart Parisian set and was heady stuff for the arthouse crowd in 1959 with those decadent parties, and all that jazz .... there is that last great line about Juliette: after her face being burnt, that she is now wearing her soul on her face!

Gerard Philipe died that year, more on him at label, as Moreau was coming into her great era, as was Trintignant. It is as fascinating as the later Glenn Close-John Malkovich version by Stephen Frears in 1987.  

Dorian Gray: just a gigolo ?

Helmut Berger is DORIAN GRAY!    David Bowie is JUST A GIGOLO!

Here is a nice helping of juicy '70s  Eurotrash after all those highbrow items. I had not seen the 1970 DORIAN GRAY since maybe the '70s and its a delightfully kitsch period piece now as we see the petulant Dorian among the Kings Road swinging set of the time. 
I was around the Kings Road myself at that time but thankfully our paths didn't cross (though Roman Polanski passed me in the street once, near the Post Office, and I did meet Joni Mitchell and Elton John there, but those are different tales).   
This DORIAN is billed as "a modern allegory based on Oscar Wilde's work", and in fact Oscar is name-checked in the film. 

Helmut, Todd & that portrait

There's no point of giving a brief synopsis of the story as we all know it's about a man who remains perpetually young while a painting of himself ages in the attic. Dorian, as played by Helmut Berger (or Helmet as he is named on the dvd, above), hot after his sensational debut in Visconti's THE DAMNED in 1969, and the same year as his role in De Sica's FINZI CONTINI film (below) holds all in his sway including painter Basil (Richard Todd) and that witty Lord Henry (Herbert Lom - still with us now in his mid-90s).  A polyglot Euro cast is assembled: Marie Lidjedahl as Sybil Vane, Maria Rohm, Margaret Lee and best of all Isa Miranda and Eleonora Rossi Drago.

Dorian's groovy pad

It follows the usual plot with some screamingly awful 1970 interiors (like Dorian's pad with those zebra pattern curtains) or his zebra coat as he dawdles along Kings Road - and that drag pub at the start is surely the Union Tavern. Some decadent parties are involved and hi-jinks on Lord Henry's boat, where Dorian loses the soap and Lord Henry makes his move. Soon, Dorian is cruising the harbourfront in his fabulous red sports car looking for some action with hunky sailors ... and of course Sybil Vane's brother re-appears but Dorian has remained the same age ... The portrait ages nicely too. (I remember Playboy magazine at the time having some raunchy photos from this, which did not make the cut here, and the dubbing is off-kilter too at times, all part of the eurotrash soft-porn fun... if it had been filmed later in the '70s it may have had that hardcore CALIGULA or Helmut's own SALON KITTY extras ...)

Helmut & Herbert in the sauna

That outfit is groovy for the Kings Road

Dorian's source of income remains a puzzle, but more than a few grateful dowagers write him cheques ... Isa Miranda is deliciously funny here - what is Dorian doing to her in the stables?; quite a bit of money has been spent on this but it still looks deliciously seedy and sleazy. Directed by one  Massimo Dallimano and produced by Harry Allen Towers. It is all luridly decadent and the transposition to the sixties suits the material perfectly.Visconti though showcased Berger perfectly - in other hands he often appears merely petulant.

Helmut & Isa

As Dorians go though its quite nicely raunchy as the era allows for a frank portrayal of Dorian's bisexuality, promiscuity and drug addiction - hinted at so strongly in the novel, but barely glimpsed in Albert Lewin's 1945 film classic with Hurt Hatfield and George Sanders as a splendid Lord Henry. There was also that BBC "play of the month" in the mid-70s with young Peter Firth as a very petulant Dorian with sterling support from Jeremy Brett as Basil and Sir Gielgud as Lord Henry. I did not care for the recent 2009 CGI DORIAN GRAY at all with the blank Ben Barnes and Colin Firth as Wooton, complete with a daughter for Dorian to fall for!

More gigolos - a regiment of them - over at JUST A GIGOLO, the fascinatingly awful film David Hemmings directed in 1978, another polyglot Euro-pudding that wastes the likes of Maria Schell and Curt Jurgens, as well as Kim Novak and Sydne Rome. 

After World War I, a war hero returns to Berlin to find that there's no place for him--he has no skills other than what he learned in the army, and can only find menial, low-paying jobs. He decides to become a gigolo to lonely rich women.

It attracted a lot of attention at the time though (like that magazine cover, top, which I still have) as it featured the return of Marlene Dietrich, in her late '70s as the Baroness who recruits David to her regiment of gigolos. David Bowie may have been a perfect alien for Nick Roeg in THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH in '75, and ideal as a vampire with Catherine Deneuve in THE HUNGER, '83,  but he is all wrong here (as he was in MERRY CHRISTMAS MR LAWRENCE) - returning to Berlin after WWI with a pig under his arm to his impoverished mother (Schell) and trying to find work (as he hardly seems to be acting). David Hemmings is on hand too with his sinister army .... and David finally meets the Baroness Von Semering, with her army of gigolos.

This is a fantastic scene to observe now:
David and the gigolos are in Berlin - Marlene and the same gigolos are in a replica set in Paris where she lived; she spent 2 days filming this and also where she sings that title song - I remember buying it as a single. It is fascinating seeing how Hemmings cuts it all together as of course Bowie and Dietrich are never in the same shot. They never even met. Marlene (whom I saw on stage in '73, theatre label) is as magnetic as ever here for her final screen appearance. I prefer David though in his pop videos like "Lets Dance", "Fashion", "Blue Jean" or "Hello Spaceboy".

David & David

This should be fascinating with all that talent involved but somehow it is a fatally dreary mess, ticking every cliche in the book - veering into CABARET territory at the end with the emergence of that sinister new force.... Hemmings does his best but is defeated by the material. But the moments with Marlene are priceless. I love her vocal here: "when the end comes I know, they will say just a gigolo, and life goes on without me..."

La Corruzione, 1963

Another Italian rarity - so rare there is no English sub-titled version available, but there it is on YouTube where the film is available in full to watch on your laptop, with optional English subtitles - so many thanks to my Sao Paulo pal Jorge for recommending this over at IMDB.  It shows though so that so many Italian films of the '60s never made it to London.  The big three then circa 1960 were of course Antonioni, Fellini and Visconti, with new boys Pasolini and Bertolucci, and old masters Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. Then there were all those other directors like Mauro Bolognini and Monicelli and Comencini and Zurlini, Alberto Lattuada, Dino Risi, Rosi etc. LA DOLCE VITA, L'AVVENTURA and ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS set the template for the Italian renaissance ...

Monicelli had his segment (right) cut from BOCCACCIO 70 in 1962 (though it is now included on the dvd and is indeed a revelation, as per 1962 label), and directed Monica Vitti in her hilarious episode in FOUR KINDS OF LOVE (LA BAMBOLE) where Bolognini directed that hilarious episode which scandalised at the time featuring Gina Lollobrigida and Jean Sorel (Sorel label); they also directed episodes of SEX QUARTET (LE FATE, THE QUEENS) in 1966, and Bolognini also one of the episodes of I TRE VOLTI which I shall be seeing shortly, it also has Antonioni's segment with ex-Empress Soraya of Iran, whom De Laurentiis was trying to make into a movie star then. Bolognini later did some exemplary costume dramas like METELLO and GRAN BOLLITO (Shelley Winters label). Zurlini did those acclaimed films like GIRL WITH A SUITCASE with Claudia Cardinale and the young Jacques Perrin in 1961 who also featured strongly in FAMILY DIARY (CRONOCA FAMILIARE) with Marcello Mastroianni in '62...

So then, to LA CORRIZIONE (CORRUPTION) in 1963, Bolognini's study of idealistic young Jacques Perrin leaving college and deciding to become a priest, as he returns to his wealthy industrialist father Alain Cuny, who enjoys the power he wields and of course has other ideas for his son's future ... this is nicely played out in those stunning interiors and marvellous black and white photography as Bolognini orchestrates it all with a sure hand - there is that stunning scene where Cuny slaps Perrin hard across the face that certainly makes one sit up and take notice ... then we are on that luxurious yacht sailing around some remote islands, with the father's current girlfriend Rosanna Schiaffino in tow.

The tensions on the boat remind one of similar scenes in L'AVVENTURA just three years earlier, as the girl and boy explore each other's attitudes and the inevitable happens.  Has the father put her up to seducing the son ? - who then wants to leave the boat.   Isa Miranda has a scene as the ailing hypochondriac mother at the clinic and there is that brilliantly staged suicide of the employee the father has been bullying ...  

Cuny is terrific here - he was the intellectual Steiner in LA DOLCE VITA and Moreau's husband in Malle's LES AMANTS among other strong roles. The very prolific Perrin impresses as usual - he went on to Demy's LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT as the blond sailor, and his involvement in Costa-Garvas' Z in 1970, (another one to revisit), Demy's LE PEAU D'ANE among others, and  his later acclaim in CINEMA PARADISO - like Jean Sorel he is older now but still working.  Rosanna Schiaffino (1939-2009) impressed me the least of those '60s Italian stars like Vitti and Cardinale, she was merely adequate in TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN and THE VICTORS etc, but she is stupendous here, with that new hairstyle and the camera loves her in those lingering closeups.  The final sequence with the young people dancing to that score by Giovanni Fusco is sensational ... and captures everything the film is about.

A gripping drama then of the Italian high life, brilliantly directed by Bolognini, with that early 60s look in spades. I loved it.