Il vento si alza

Much more exciting than Yves Ciampi 's precedent effort "typhon sur Nagasaki" , a disaster movie cum soap opera which its prestigious stars , Danielle Darrieux and Jean Marais were not able to save .In "le vent se lève",the director meets again Curd Jurgens he had always directed in the underrated "les héros sont fatigués" (1954)

And yet ,the screenplay is hackneyed : the company going bankrupt, so let's destroy a ship and presto ,collect the insurance money ; it was already treated in Baroncelli's "la rose de la mer'"(1946) and in countless others.

Whilst the 1946 focussed on psychology ( Fernand Ledoux had never been so cynical and so hateful) , Ciampi plays on suspense ;his characters are cardboard : the selfish brother who wants to sink his Mercedès bought on credit, the captain's lover, the gorgeous sexy Mylène Demongeot recently deceased, and a tough captain whose plan based on a time bomb cannot fail.

But of course nothing will work according to plan:a series of incidents delays the ship en route to detruction ; it almost turns to disaster movie in its final quarter but suspense is sustained till its ironical ending .Jess Hahn appears as the unfortunate victim of his captain's greed.