Purple Noon
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Movie Reviews of Purple Noon
Movie Review: Worth Seeing for Scenery and Suspense
Summary: 4 Stars
"Purple Noon," ("Plein Soleil") (!960), is a classic of the French cinema, a full-color crime/thriller/drama set on the luscious Italian Riviera. It was adapted and directed by highly- respected French director Rene Clement, (Essential Art: Forbidden Games), from The Talented Mr. Ripley, a thriller by the American author Patricia Highsmith, best-known for Strangers on a Train. PURPLE NOON gives us loads of lush and beautiful scenery, and two of the most beautiful French leading men of the time, Alain Delon (Le Samourai - Criterion Collection) and Maurice Ronet (After the Fox). "Purple Noon" was the first filmed treatment of this important, insidious novel, which quite likely owes its kernel to Henry James'The Ambassadors. Highsmith's novel, of course, was to be filmed again, more recently in 1999, as The Talented Mr. Ripley in English, by British director Anthony Minghella. That version was to star Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
However, in PURPLE NOON, the cagey Tom Ripley , who is played by Alain Delon , is sent to Europe by a Mr. Greenleaf to fetch back his spoiled, playboy son, Philippe, played by Maurice Ronet (known as Dickie in the novel and the Minghella version, and why did they ever change it here?). Tom is to receive $5,000 for this pleasant chore. Philippe toys with Tom, pretending he will go back; nevertheless, he has no intentions of honoring his father's wishes or of leaving his bride to be, Marge, played by Marie Laforet, a Stockard Channing look-alike. As time passes, Mr. Greenleaf comes to consider the mission a failure and cuts Tom off. Tom then kills Philippe, and co-opts his enviable life. However, Ripley's complicated impersonation begins to entrap him, and suspense builds. He will need all his abilities as a conman to keep Philippe's friends and the police off his much too hot trail.
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is first in a five-book Ripley series penned by Highsmith, known to its fans as the Ripleyiad. This is a sexy, and gorgeous looking film adaptation, but it veers off in some odd directions, perhaps motivated by the more puritan American market at the time. Oddest, to me, is the omission of the strong homoerotic currents between Ripley and Greenleaf that haunt both the underlying book and the later film. Ripley, instead, is here made much more heterosexual than his creator envisioned him. Other odd plot changes from Highsmith's underlying book would make it much more difficult to film the later books of the Ripleyiad. Nevertheless, the movie is worth a viewing on its own terms: it is tight and suspenseful, set in beautiful Italian scenery, and stars two beautiful men, each of whom we get to see in great eyefuls.
Movie Review: The fine art of murder
Summary: 4 Stars
Patricia Highsmith's THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY might be the finest American suspense thriller ever written. A clever young man from a disadvantaged background is sent abroad by an industrialist to bring home the latter's spoiled and vicious son; befriending the young rotter in Italy, the antihero becomes enamored of his decadent lifestyle and kills him so he can assume his identity. The novel is not only suspenseful but it forms a brilliant disquisition on the nature of identity at mid-century, and its relationship to texts, reputation, and capital. Two very intelligent films have been made from it that capture different parts of it successfully: the latest is Anthony Minghella's 1999 big-budget Hollywood thriller starring Matt Damon, but the first was this beautifully photographed French version directed by Rene Clement starring Alain Delon as Ripley.
Clement's version succeeds best in its evocation of the lovely rarefied atmosphere of the tourist Italy of the American jetset: the cinematography has a crystalline postcard beauty that makes Rome and the Italian coast seem supernatually beautiful. It also has a much better Ripley in Delon than Minghella had in Damon: Delon is much less hesitant and much more desperate and amoral, and he also has the requisite handsomeness (and facial resemblance to the rich wastrel he murders and replaces) that Damon lacks. As the gorgeous, cruel Dickie Greenleaf (here called Phillipe), Maurice Ronet is absolutely first-rate, toying with Ripley in the mistaken belief that he holds all the cards in their friendship. Less successful as Phillipe's emotionally abused girlfriend Marge is Marie Leforet, who doesn't seem to react to Phillipe at all as an American girl would ever conceiveably do. The film is great at conveying an aura of homoerotic decadence, but it loses quite a bit by beginning the story in medias res: by not showing us the circumstances from which Ripley came, we have little sense at what is at stake in his masquerade. But this is this fine adaptation's only major shortcoming.
Movie Review: Very good movie/Ok DVD
Summary: 4 Stars
Many comparisons can be made between "Plein Soleil"(better translated as "Broad Daylight" than "Purple Noon") and "The Talented Mr. Ripley". They are both good films, with incredibly intriguing story lines and fine performances. The cinematography in both films is superb as well. The more recent version does look better, technically, but the Clement film is very pleasing to the eye, not just for the scenery, but for the incredible beauty of the young Alain Delon.This is not really a 'great' film--it's really just about the intrigue, and it fascinates the viewer by forcing identification with a nefarious protagonist--but it is mighty entertaining.
The Miramax DVD is something of a disappointment. Apart from some flashing in several scenes, the film transfer looks mostly very good. There is some distortion in the mono soundtrack, which unfortunately mars Rota's lovely score. Yet, there is at least one moment when everything works together beautifully: for instance the non-dialogue scene where Tom Ripley looks over an outdoor fish market in Naples--the colors, Delon's face and the music combine for five minutes of cinematic magic.
The DVD is also a letdown in terms of features: there are three skimpy trailers, NOT including one for "Plein Soleil". The English subtitles must be turned on, they are not automatic, AND the French-language soundtrack must be selected from the setup menu, otherwise the disc defaults to the inferior English-dubbed version.
Still worth having for an enjoyable movie
Movie Review: Beautiful and Alain Delon Shines Through.
Summary: 4 Stars
Viewed: 12/08
Rate: 7
12/08: Purple Noon is a beautiful looking film mainly because of its exotic Italian surroundings but treads on a thin ice for its unstable plot. The performances are mostly pretty good, and I liked Alain Delon's the best. He easily showed the treacherous trait that makes me to hate him a bit, and the way he did it reminds me of few schoolmates back then. There are always people like that, so it was a nice character performance for Alain Delon. Maurice Ronet, on the other hand, was excellent playing as Phillippe Greenleaf, especially in his spontaneous manner. When that death scene occurred for him, it was a shocking scene as that one came unexpected for me. Although I already saw The Talented Mr. Ripley before Purple Noon, the latter is way, way better than the remake. After seeing how the plot unfolded and represented before the final ending, I felt awkward to have sit through it, lamenting how dumb the movie was. It is I who is thinking, "Well, could this Mr. Ripley could have thought this out better and saved me the time?" When the shocking twist came few minutes before Purple Noon ends, I thought that moment really saved the film in whole. However, it just makes more sense if Tom Ripley skipped town with the money to save himself the trouble regardless of what happens. All in all, Purple Noon is a wonderful and also enticing picture to watch.
Movie Review: Purple Noon
Summary: 4 Stars
In an age of sensational stunts and special effects designed to attract audiences, it is refreshing to see that these are not necessary to intrigue, entertain and to tell a story well.
I saw this film many years ago as a young man and left me with an indelible memory, I wanted to see it again to test that memory. I was not disappointed, the acting, the direction, the locations, the cinematography, all impeccable.
I wonder if those involved in the disappointing re-make ever saw it. If they did they learnt nothing from it.