Imagine Juliete (BB ,"Et Dieu Créa La Femme")chooses to follow her millionaire (Curd Jurgens).She becomes a kept woman living with a shady German (an ex-Nazi)who could be her father and is wooed by a good-looking man (Christian Marquand ,who courts her in "Et Dieu...." ).There the comparison ends,for Françoise Arnoul is an old school actress,often directed by Henry Decoin ("La Chatte " which features a memorable hot erotic questioning) or Henri Verneuil.
I've never been a fan of the new wave,let alone Vadim (in the cast and credits ,his first name does not appear,which is very rare),but I must say that "Sait -On Jamais? " (the question is uttered by Marquand at the beginning of the film ;as it is short,watch out!)has stood the test of time better than most of his flicks which ,seen today ,often sink into ridicule .
This must be the atmosphere .The screenplay is poorly written and the viewer does not really care for this 2 million coup .
The cinematography (by Armand Thirard) uses the wide screen and Eastmancolor with talent : Venice has perhaps never been filmed so nicely (except maybe in Roeg's "don't look back" ),and the interiors of the Venetian palaces have something venomous (note the presence of Daniel Emilfork ,the most sinister-looking French actor,as a servant )
The movie also shows that Vadim could have been a true film noir director,had he not succumbed to the N.W vices (loose screenplays,cult of youth ,navel-gazing,cheap eroticism):
-the murder of O.E. Hasse ,with Hossein's tears falling on his cheeks ,in an unusual inventive scene .
-the macabre procession on the blue-green waters of Venice canals ,which may have inspired Nicholas Roeg.
On the other hand ,the Boing Boing cartoon which opens the movie ,unless it forebodes the characters 'impossibility to communicate - after all,there are Germans,French and Italians),is mostly filler .
