When You Read This Letter

Well, okay, there's no singing and dancing, but look at what it does have: the Riviera, fast cars, luxury hotels, prizefighting, a gigolo-thief, symbolism, irony, rape, and nuns. Therese, the would-be nun, is snatched from the convent at nearly the last minute and returned to a world which, warmly bourgeois on the surface, is in fact teeming with villainy and obsession. When the criminal's obsession with money collides with Therese's obsession with divine justice, the screen practically combusts. (There is, as well, a scene in which fire is used to represent the mortal dangers of both carelessness and passion.)

Juliette Greco, young and gorgeous, has cheekbones that just don't stop. She vividly personifies the forces of God and nature that leave terrible destruction in their wake. A terrific powerhouse of a movie.