Artistically,it represents the lowest point René Clément was to reach:he was wise enough to call it quits afterwards.
René Clément 's career had begun to decline,slowly but inexorably,during the sixties.His best works ("les maudits","jeux interdits" ,"Gervaise" and "plein soleil") were made before 1960,that is to say before the nouvelle vague's explosion.
"Plein soleil"(1959)is a movie we must come back to if we want to understand Clément's evolution:his first thriller,and the first version of Patricia Highsmith's "the talented M.Ripley",it was completely successful(although it was not really faithful to the novel),and Clement could believe he was a potential Hitchcock .All his subsequent movies bar two will be thrillers.They all boast an American star:Jane Fonda in "les félins",Charles Bronson in "le passager de la pluie" ,Faye Dunaway in "la maison sous les arbres",Robert Ryan in "la course du lièvre à travers les champs" and Robert Vaughn in this one.Another thing is obvious:they 're getting worse and worse(the movies not the actors!) as the years go passing by:only the first one,with his plot à la Boileau-Narcejac ,is still watchable today.
From "le passager de la pluie" onwards,René Clément showed ludicrous metaphysical pretensions ,quoting Lewis Caroll in the movie mentioned above,trying to mix suspense and subtile hidden meaning:"la course du lièvre..." spreads its action over 140 boring minutes.He hit rock bottom with "la baby sitter" (which was the real French title,I do not know where they found "jeune fille libre le soir"):the plot is so confused it's sometimes impossible to understand it.It seems that Clement had in mind a movie about torturers and victims.His directing is ponderous and lifeless,the cast is mediocre (Maria Schneider who starred in "last tango in Paris",Sydne Rome),the suspense absent,and the plot has more holes than Swiss cheese.Unlike "plein soleil",do not bother to remake.
