Le Sauvage (1975)

          The sleeky entertaining French farce Le Sauvage is like a Gallic spin on a Blake Edwards movie. Fast, funny, sexy, surprising, and touching, the picture matches two iconic stars—breathtaking Catherine Deneuve and suave Yves Montand—with masterful storytelling by director/co-writer Jean-Paul Rappeneau. Le Sauvage is frothy entertainment at its best, exactly because it’s not frothy in every scene; Rappeneau realizes that audiences need moments of sanity in order to care about characters when things get crazy.
          Here’s the short version of the plot. Frenchwoman Nelly (Deneuve) is in Venezuela to marry her hotheaded Italian fiancé, Vittori (Luigi Vannucchi). Just before the wedding, she changes her mind, so she runs away and seeks shelter in a hotel, where an altruistic stranger, Martin (Montand), intervenes when Vittori breaks into Nelly’s hotel room and tries to drag her home. Escaping the hotel, Nelly tracks down her former lover, an American named Alex (Tony Roberts), for help leaving the country. Vitorri finds Nelly at Alex’s place, too, so she flees again—taking Alex’s prized Toulouse-Lautrec painting with her so she can sell it for traveling money. More chases and close encounters ensue, until Nelly finds her perfect hideaway on Martin’s private island, even though Martin has no interest in visitors. Unlikely romance blooms as various forces converge on the island, some pursuing Nelly and some pursuing Martin.

          It’s all completely outlandish, but Rappeneau presents events in such a methodical way that the story never spins out of control. Quite to the contrary, the narrative has a comfortable rhythm of intimate scenes and noisy set pieces. Rappeneau also takes full advantage of a series of dynamic locations, with scenes set in France and New York in addition to the various South American locales. Montand suits this material perfectly, his macho energy leavened by poetic sensitivity; Vannucchi is wonderful as the maniac who’ll stop at nothing to recover his runaway bride; and it’s a kick to see Woody Allen regular Roberts smoothly delivering lines in French.

          Yet the whole piece revolves around Deneuve, since only a woman of her exquisite beauty could support a plot predicated on men chasing her across the globe and tolerating her quixotic behavior. While never disengaging from her familiar screen persona of chilly sophistication, Deneuve lightens up considerably here, and it’s impossible to say enough about how ravishing she looks. Even when scampering around the island wearing nothing but one of Martin’s shirts, she’s mesmerizing. That’s why the main gimmick of the love story—the notion that Martin finds Nelly highly resistible because she’s such a pain in the ass—is so fun. The ending is never in doubt, but the path to the ending is filled with delightful detours. Plus, befitting the analogy to Blake Edwards’ work, Rappeneau stages physical-comedy scenes with the artistry and grace of a choreographer. So even though Le Sauvage isn’t about anything, it’s consistently playful, vibrant, and warmhearted.

Le Sauvage: GROOVY

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970)

          Bloated, miscast, and ridiculous, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is one of those old-school film adaptations of Broadway shows that’s tacky enough to make some people swear off musicals forever. Every single thing about this movie is artificial, from the unbelievable love relationship at the center of the story to the stylized sets on which the action unfolds. Worse, the songs (by Burton Lane and the legendary Alan Jay Lerner) are forgettable and saccharine. That said, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever is fascinatingly weird, because the underlying narrative is borderline perverse. When the tale begins, a psychiatrist (Yves Montand) works with a neurotic young woman (Barbra Streisand) to cure her smoking addiction, only to discover that she vividly recalls her past lives; in short order, the psychiatrist falls in love with one of his patient’s past selves, then contrives reasons to hypnotize the modern woman so he can court someone who’s been dead for a century. Furthermore, the shrink is about 30 years his patient’s senior—and the young woman has ESP, and she’s considering leaving her fiancée for her stepbrother (Jack Nicholson). Kinky!

          Much of this material was added for the movie (Lerner wrote the screenplay, and old-school musical pro Vincente Minnelli directed), which means the team behind the film of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever deemed this plot an improvement over the stage version. Since the story is such a mess, the meager appeal of this picture is mostly attributable to Streisand’s charms. In addition to her magnificent singing voice, she showcases her considerable light-comedy chops, and she looks more beautiful here than in almost any other movie: During flashbacks as her character’s 19th-century alter ego, Streisand is downright ravishing in low-cut gowns and ornate hairstyles. So, if nothing else, it’s easy to see why the shrink falls for “Melinda,” the 19th-century character, even if it’s difficult to see why anyone fell for the narrative when the show appeared on Broadway.  Apparently, on a clear day you can’t see plot holes.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever: FUNKY