This weird black comedy is one of Roman Polanski’s more obscure efforts, little remembered today, although it was released not long after after his acclaimed Repulsion.
A wounded criminal and his dying partner take refuge at a beachfront castle. The owners of the castle, a meek Englishman and his willful French wife, are initially the unwilling hosts to the criminals. Quickly, however, the relationships between the criminal, the wife, and the Englishman begin to shift in humorous and bizarre fashion.
When I was in high school or college, one of the local TV stations used to run theme movie programs in the wee hours of Friday and Saturday night. One of them was Chiller Theater, and the other was Super-Spy Theater (Bond-mania was an ubiquitous cultural phenomenon at the time). It was on the spy program that I first saw an entertaining, offbeat spoof called That Man From Rio, which made me a fan of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Françoise Dorléac. I couldn’t figure out what was going on in that film, but I don’t think I was supposed to. Either way, I enjoyed it immensely.
If you’re a film buff you probably know that Françoise was the older sister of the beautiful Catherine Deneuve (nee Dorléac), who became a major star, but didn’t have Françoise’s deft comic touch, so established a completely different screen presence – the aloof, unapproachable beauty. The Dorléac sisters made one movie together, a musical called The Young Girls of Rochefort (their singing was dubbed.)
There was no doubt in my mind that Françoise would become a huge star. Throughout her brief career, she was gorgeous and funny and sometimes naked, which are three of my favorite qualities in mammals.
So why was her career so brief?
She was just 25 when her rental car flipped and burned on a roadway in Nice, France.
Tragic loss, beautiful woman