Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as the owner of a cigarette factory on an African island, and a single man who advertises for a wife and, voilà, gets Catherine Deneuve. Problem is, however, she isn't quite what she seems in this 1969 drama by François Truffaut, taken from a Cornell Woolrich novel called Waltz into Darkness. Suspicions lead to deception and deception to murder, and along the way Belmondo's character, despite everything, continues to fall in love with his enigmatic prize, which is really the point of the film: the protagonist, almost as if he were willing himself into a noir myth, seems determined to fall under the spell of a romantic delusion. A fine effort by Truffaut that is the best of his mid-period pulpy, suspense films (along with The Bride Wore Black and Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me). --Tom Keogh
2.
A wealthy businessman living on the island of La Reunion orders a bride by mail and receives--instead of his intended--a beautiful, mysterious woman with a flimsy excuse. He marries the imposter anyway, but his dream life is shattered when the woman absconds with his bank account and leads him into a murky drama of missing persons and murder.
Ultimately, this strange tale transforms into a surprisingly powerful adult love story, in which both participants find themselves able to forgive each other's failings and transgressions--allowing them to move forward without regret, or undue fear of what the future might hold. In the film's finale, Truffaut returns to the same barren, snowbound cabin that he used to such great effect in SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, only this time the results are substantially less fatalistic.
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