La femme et le pantin (1959)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Julien Duvivier

Writers:

Marcel Achard (writer)
Jean Aurenche (writer)

Release Date:

4 February 1959 (Sweden)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

In Her Hands Men Were Puppets...Loving Her Was Like Walking Blindfolded Into a Jungle!

Plot Keywords:

Jealousy | Beautiful Woman | Dance | Based On Novel

Cast

Brigitte Bardot	...	Eva Marchand
Antonio Vilar	...	Don Matteo Diaz
Lila Kedrova	...	Manuela
Daniel Ivernel	...	Berthier
Darío Moreno	...	Arbadajian
Michel Roux	...	Albert
Jacques Mauclair	...	Stanislas Marchand
Jess Hahn	...	Sidney
Espanita Cortez	...	Maria Teresa
Claude Godard	...	Mercedes
Rivers Cadet	...	Man in car
Germaine Michel	...	Woman in car
Dominique Zardi	...	Un marin
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Betty Beckers
Denise Carvenne
Gisèle Grimm
Monique Just
Anne-Marie Mersen

Also Known As:

A Woman Like Satan (UK)
Femmina (Italy)
The Female

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Camargue, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Company:

Dear Film Produzione

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Le coeur au poing (1998)

The puppet is Duvivier.

"La femme et le pantin" is the most distressingly mediocre Duvivier film.It was absolutely bland ,not even distinguished by the professionalism that came to stamp his later work.It was exactly his professionalism that provoked the derision of the young Turks of the Nouvelle Vague for whom "carrying on the tradition" was not the road to follow.But when even professionalism is in question,what can be saved?

"La femme et le pantin" found the director lost in the folklore for tourists and hiding behind Brigitte Bardot's sensual body.BB is the only thing worthwhile in the whole movie.She is probably the ideal actress cast in the wrong movie.She is sadly unsupported by a very poor cast:her lover is not even handsome ,her father acts like a zombie and her mother's overplaying is thoroughly unbearable.

This is the third version of Pierre Louïs's novel;for the record,there was also De Baroncelli's (France,1928) ,Von Sternberg's ("The Devil is a Woman" ,US,1935) and Luis Bunuel 's( "Cet Obscur Objet du Desir" France,1977)

Do not get me wrong:I am a big Duvivier fan and I have written more comments on his films than on any other director 's works.This is the only one where I cannot say something nice.