Le dernier amant romantique

I have not seen this movie in a number of years, so my impression of it may no longer be the same if I saw it today, but I recall being pleasantly surprised by it.

This movie is probably far and away the best one by the same director of the films Emmanuelle, The Story of 'O', and The Perils of Gwendoline.

While in each of those films, the sex is central to the storyline, as well as the main justification for the movie, in this one the sex is far more incidental, subtle, and far less prevalent.

The plot centers around a circus owner who, in the audience of a "dating" game show, winds up winning a weekend with "the girl of his choice". On the air, he "chooses" the jaded, "world weary" female emcee, played by Dayle Haddon.

For reasons which I don't recall, but seemed reasonable, she is grudgingly dragooned into basically hanging out with him for a weekend at his circus. She clearly expects him to be far more crude and unrefined than he turns out to be, as he sets out to make her fall in love with him.

It's probably not realistic, but it is, if my own recollections hold up, a fairly nice romantic story nonetheless. I am pretty sure it would be a good date movie, offhand.

I would rate it fairly high among the various French movies I have seen. I think the copy I saw was dubbed, not subtitled, but since Haddon, I think, was doing her own voice, it was well dubbed. Again, though, no promises.

Good luck finding it, of course, since no one seems to have a DVD or videotape of it for sale according to IMDB. I think I last saw it on one of the Pay channels in the mid-80s. There does seem to be a mail order rental house that has it, however.