Director Alexandre Astruc lived to the ripe old age of 92 but did not leave a significant body of work. LES MAUVAISES RENCONTRES, freely translated as BAD ENCOUNTERS, comes 10 years after David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Besides the similar word in the title, you also see trains and a woman considering, and actually engaging in, relations with men. Thankfully shorter than Lean's masterpiece, MAUVAISES sees down on her luck and lonely Anouk Aimée make use of her physical beauty to pull the heartstrings of four men. At first, she is too innocent to know what she is doing and she acts out of genuine love as she bids goodbye to her first boyfriend, who decides to cut his losses and just pulls off on a train.
Dashing and well-off publisher Jean-Claude Pascal is the one who she seems to have deepest feelings for, and who hoists her up the social strata from enough purse for two to three weeks' living, to a steadier financial and professional situation as photoshoot model and fashion journalist, able to afford her own vehicle, in which she is confident enough to seduce her third man, Alain (rather nervously played by Philippe Lemaire).
In comes the other female, Gaby Sylvia, whose importance in the story is questionable apart from apparently snitching for police. She also knows Alain and Dr. Danielli, the latter apparently feeling rermorseful enough to help Catherine (Anouk Aimée) get rid of her unwanted and inconvenient pregnancy... and to put a bullet through his own cranium! Was it because he made her pregnant? Because abortion cost the fetus' life? Because his medical career might suffer as a result of his law-breaking conduct? Why the good doctor should feel remorseful, let alone suicidal, I could not suss out given the brevity of his presence on screen, and the plot's failure to clarify it.
Robert Le Febvre's thoughtful and technically impressive cinematography helps put some substance on a thin plot. Even back in 1955 I doubt French police would interrogate a woman over her decision to abort, and certainly Catherine reflects the emergence of looser morals, a ramification of the many social changes ushered in by the recently ended Second World War.
Aimée (meaning beloved female) does indeed look lovely and is lovingly filmed, in line with her occupation as model and fashion newswoman. Pascal steals the show with his handsome figure and significant eyes. I found the rest of the cast unmemorable, though Gaby Sylvia looked like Gina Lollobrigida and, as indicated above, she seemed to land an unenviable and underused part.
7/10 is probably overgenerous, but I feel the film's production values deserve some recognition.
