The Booty (1966)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The prey |
| Original title | La Curée |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1966 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Roger Vadim |
| script | Roger Vadim, Jean Cau (dialogues) |
| production | Roger Vadim |
| music |
Jean Bochéty , Jean-Pierre Bourtayre |
| camera | Claude Renoir |
| cut | Victoria Mercanton |
| occupation | |
| |
The booty (Original title: La Curée ) is a French-Italian relationship drama by Roger Vadim in 1966. The plot is based on the novel The spoils of Émile Zola from the year 1871/72, a modern version of the ancient Phaedra myth. It was the second film that Vadim made after the amorous dance (1964) with Jane Fonda , whom he married on August 14, 1965 just before filming The Booty .
action
After completing his studies in England, Maxime Saccard moves to Paris to live with his wealthy father, Alexandre, an industrialist who is second married to the young Canadian Renée Saccard. The woman confesses to the young man that she only consented to the marriage because she was pregnant. After the stillbirth, her love for Alexandre had cooled down. Maxim and Renée fall in love. She demands a divorce from her husband, as she herself comes from a rich family. The industrialist agrees to split, but expects Renée to leave all of the capital she brought into the marriage with the company.
She accepts and travels to Switzerland to seal the divorce. Alexandre uses her absence to present his son with alternatives, either he gets involved with the now destitute Renée, or he marries Anne Sernet, the daughter of a wealthy business partner who is extremely useful to Alexandre. Maxim chooses the latter. Renée returned to Paris just in time to witness Maxime and Anne's pompous engagement party. Desperate and determined to kill herself, she throws herself into the pool, but then decides to appear in the ballroom, dripping wet. Alexandre leads her to the changing rooms, where she stays behind and stares blankly into the distance, losing all of her hopes and longings.
background
As was not unusual at the time, the film was shot in two versions, in English and in French. Jane Fonda, who played the leading role in both cases, called the production a “happy time” with Vadim in her memoir: “Having a common goal, to manage orderly working days together, gave our relationship a meaning that we had outside of work at the time often seemed to be absent. ”She responded to the predominantly negative reviews in the USA by pointing out that the main debates there were about nudity, while her artistic achievement was perceived much more seriously in Europe. While filming was still in progress, Fonda received an offer from Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis to take on the leading role in the planned comic film adaptation of Barbarella , a project that Vadim and Fonda finally also realized together and the actress finally became a popular sex symbol of the sixties let. Unlike Fonda, Peter McEnery did not speak a word of French; he had to practice his part phonetically with the help of a language trainer. The text was then dubbed by a French actor. Michel Piccoli, who was very busy at the time, made a total of seven full-length films in 1966.
Criticism and popular success
The booty landed in France on June 22, 1966 and in Germany on August 12, 1966. The film was a success at the French box office (10th place in the 1966 cinema year in terms of sales). At first it was also well received by the critics, but it was panned at the Venice Film Festival . At the Italian theatrical release shortly afterwards, all copies were confiscated because of the nude scenes. 23 cinema operators and the distributor had to answer, but not Vadim and Fonda. In the United States , apart from the camera work by Claude Renoir, the film was also received rather negatively. The Washington Post spoke of a "deliciously hypocritical and insincere" film, the Cleveland Press of a "bland exercise in banality" that only attracts viewers because Fonda can be seen naked. The Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, considered The Prey to be Jane Fonda's best film ever. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the “breathtaking” camera work, but called the overall result “tiring and ridiculous”. Nevertheless, despite the “unmistakably bad taste” of Vadim, he also recognized “great physical beauty”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jane Fonda: My Life So Far , New York 2005, p. 170
- ↑ George Haddad-Garcia: The Films Of Jane Fonda , New York 1983, p. 127 f.
- ↑ Simon Matthews: Psychedelic Celluloid: British Pop Music in Film & TV 1965 - 1974 , Harpenden 2016, p. 28
- ↑ http://www.clevelandmemory.org/mastroianni/tm574.html
- ↑ https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-game-is-over-1967