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Our 'Revenge is a Woman Week' concludes with the Truffaut masterpiece, The Bride Wore Black! Also, don't miss the Bride all-in-black wedding reception after party, 'Behind the Black Veil' Jan 27!

'Pulled back from an out-the-window suicide attempt, Jeanne Moreau (solely black or white-clad, and low-key and business-like throughout) decides it’s time for a trip, then proceeds to track down, playing the enigmatic femme fatale in five different styles, five total strangers — ex-playboy/ groom-to-be Claude Rich, lonely Michel Bouquet, boorish budding politician Michel Lonsdale, admittedly skirt-chasing artist Charles Denner, and hot car entrepreneur Daniel Boulanger — using her hands; poisoned wine; a knife — no, not the knife; a gun — no, not the gun; then the knife...

Meanwhile, Jean-Claude Brialy keeps thinking he’s seen her somewhere before... While Moreau charmingly befriends and befuddles “le petit” Christophe Bruno, and maybe/almost finds love along the way. Truffaut’s ultimate Hitchcock homage — right down to the source material (a novel by Rear Window author Cornell Woolrich) and Herrmann score — and one of his most troubled productions, his day-long battles with legendary Nouvelle Vague cameraman Raoul Coutard ending their collaboration; but one of his biggest box office successes and eliciting the ultimate compliment:

“I especially liked the scene of Moreau watching the man who had taken poison dying slowly” – Hitchcock.'

Reviews:

"DELICIOUS! With its summery, Mediterranean surface, Jeanne Moreau as the ultimate femme fatale heroine and a knife-twisting tale of murderous revenge and unexpected romance, The Bride Wore Black is well worth rediscovering."

– Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

 

"HAS PLENTY OF STYLE TO BURN! It's less about suspense and more about the gleeful frivolity with which the New Wave legend upended genre conventions."

– New York magazine

 

“PURE PLEASURE! WHAT MOVIES ARE ABOUT! Truffaut is such a poetic filmmaker that the film turns around and becomes, not at all Hitchcockian, but a gentle comedy and one of the few plausible and strange love stories in a long time... Touching and fun at a level so much higher than other films that it is just a great relief to have it to see.”

– Renata Adler, The New York Times

 

“A MARRIAGE OF THE NEW WAVE AND HOLLYWOOD! Truffaut uses such classic Hitchcock situations as the innocent man wrongly accused (or is he?); the chase; the unexpected interruption; the theme of restraint and confinement; the series of evil events that take place in sunshine and happiness, during wedding parties and games of children’s tag. Best of all, the ending is totally unexpected and totally satisfying.”

– Roger Ebert

 

“The beauty of the way Truffaut puts film together is one of the great pleasures of cinema. In itself, the plot could make this a silly picture. What transforms it has nothing to do with what he has learned from Hitchcock; the grace that saves it is Truffaut’s own comic and poetic feeling for behavior… By some miracle of taste and insight Truffaut almost shakes off the limitations of his master and begins to let the story grow into something else. The Bride Wore Black isn’t really a thriller. It’s a film about pagan love pitted against Catholic notions of guilt, with love humorously triumphant and somehow scot-free.”

– Penelope Gilliatt, The New Yorker

 

"HIGHLY ENTERTAINING!"

– Time Out (London)