Le sauvage

In Caracas, Nelly (Catherine Deneuve) is engaged of Vittorio (Luigi Vannucchi). However, after the engagement party with his family, she calls off the commitment and flees from him lodging in a hotel. Vittorio pursues her but the middle-aged French guest Martin (Yves Montand) helps Nelly. She seeks out her former employer Alex Fox (Tony Roberts), who owns a night-club and owes one-year salary to her, but he does not help her. Nelly steals a valuable painting from his office and heads back to the hotel, hiding in Martin's room. He gets a ticket to Paris for her and leaves her at the airport. Then he sails on his boat to an island where he lives alone. When Martin arrives, he finds Nelly waiting for him in his house. She explains that customs did not allow her to leave Venezuela with the painting. Soon his peaceful life of hermit becomes Hell on Earth, but they fall in love with each other. However Vittorio and Alex are still chasing her.

"Le sauvage" is a silly but funny romantic comedy. Catherine Deneuve is gorgeous and her devilish character is totally amoral. There is no reason why men fall for her but her beauty. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Selvagem" ("The Savage")

After an unsuccessful engagement party Nelly (Catherine Deneuve) leaves his fiancée and hiding in the Hotel, meeting Martin (Yves Montand) who help her to run of his angry and abandoned Italian guy, so she goes to your former Boss to receive your money for late payment, but he doesn't pays her, so she has to stolen a expensive and famous Toulouse Lautrec's painting and looking Martin again to sell it, but he didn't have enough money, somehow end up on a isolate island where Martin lives an easy life, now he has to send away this disturbed woman, to lives in peace!!! Silly but watchable Romantic comedy from these great french actors.

After thirty, I suppose a legend is able to do pretty much what she wants. Here, Catherine Deneuve, tiring of being the glacial Grace Kelly type for Bunuel, Truffaut et les autres opts for very effective physical comedy alongside Yves Montand.

They do Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn-style farcical routines very well. Deneuve, escaping from her frenetic fiance, hooks up with Montand, who is himself fleeing marital and business entanglements. Tony Roberts, seen in Woody Allen films of the period, does very well as the club owner from whom Deneuve steals a Toulouse-Lautrec, and who must track down the dizzy blonde in Venezuela to get it back. Jean-Paul Rappeneau's direction is accomplished and the scenery is gorgeous. There is a car chase that actually is funny, and I can't recall the last one that made me laugh.

Nelly (Catherine D.) is not your average good girl in this somewhat unusual movie. A former ... easy woman, had a "house" with two friends in Paris, then for some reason moved to Venezuela (!) working in a trendy night bar, but the first scene of the movie is her desperate present: she's been married, ostensibly unwillingly, to a crass rich vulgar ... Italian, extended family included. Even if her past is not exactly blameless, she looks them down haughtily, like a princess. Next thing she's doing is leaving on the middle of the wet Caracas night, which makes her come across our hero Martin, (Yves M.), and a mysterious and friendly looking American tourist. They all play an important part in this movie, of which I've only told you the first 5 minutes... :).

If your view of Latin America includes corruption, urban car chases in streets without people, mafiosos, everybody shouting in Spanish *(including princess Deneuve), breaking everything at offices, brawls in bars, thefts, huge curly haired locals, burning things, greed, talks about money all the time, American companies exploiting locals, yes "Amigo", this is your film :).

Ironies apart, while not exactly a very welcoming view of Venezuela, we do get to see the clearest water, a paradisiacal island, modern highways, and -for the time- those big, oil thirsty big American cars that could only be standard in an oil rich country :).

Some films are able to be reasoned out, this is obviously not that kind :). If you accept the premises, I agree with other IMDb reviewers that as a "physical comedy" it fares pretty well. Who cares if the main characters (Nelly and Martin) change completely from scene to scene, from aloofness to giddy love, in turns, but asyncronously, so as to fill an hour and a half? Who want to know why is Martin so good at so many disparate and very difficult abilities, from top notch perfume making to building ships alone, drawing like an architect, or making an elaborate system for watering his ample vegetable garden, fighting and actually defeating thugs like mosquitoes, and yes, being able to resist Catherine D., probably one of the most beautiful women on the planet, on a desert island, like if there really were more important things to do :). Like raising chicken, for instance :). Why did Martin leave his important job and enigmatic rich American wife (Dana Wynter)? In short, who wants a plot when you can have Deneuve :)? I agree with IMDb reviewer "eva25at from Vienna" that the scenes where she is trying to win him over are funny, like the one with the rebellious chicken, or when she is astonished at watching real tomatoes "from the plant"... Nelly doesn't know much about farming :).

We do get to see Catherine's legs and skittish movements, and for those so inclined, a decent torso (Yves'), rather well kept for his age (54 years old).

Enjoy without qualms!

PS: As a bonus, we get to see Deneuve's bosom, but you'll have to watch this film for more than an hour to get it. Worth the wait, if you ask me :).

Recipe for escapist film: Take one top writer (Jean-Loup Dabadou), add one top director (Jean-Paul Rappeneau), season with a brace of A-list vedettes (Yves Montand, Catherine Deneuve), and a dash of screwball and voila! Eat! Enjoy! A guy who has quit the perfume business and found that the Grasse is greener in the islands, a gal running away from a vitriolic Italian, a stolen Lautrec, a bearded Montand, a gorgeous Deneuve, an island idyll. What more do you want. You DO want more? Gee, some people are NEVER satisfied. How about Tony Roberts doing the Tony Randall/Gig Young stooge to Doris Day-James Garner-Rock Hudson spot and proving up to snuff. NOW will you go see it and do yourself a favor. This is a million miles away from Godard pretentiousness and all the better for it. 9/10