The Black Tulip

A seductive fight film for the atmosphere, youth of lead actors, for humor and for absurd of few scenes. A sort of flavor of nostalgia remains the main gift of this lovely, easy film about brotherhood, legend, justice, French Revolution premises and love.

In 1789, in France, the outlaw The Black Tulip (Alain Delon) is a thief that steals the nobles for himself; however the poor people believes he is a revolutionary. He is indeed the womanized and dull Count Guillaume de Saint Preux, who has a love affair with the married Marquise Catherine de Vigogne (Dawn Addams). When the Chief of Police Baron La Mouche (Adolfo Marsillach) plans a scheme to arrest The Black Tulip, the bandit is marked by a scar on the face and La Mouche suspects Guillaume might be The Black Tulip. However Guillaume summons his clumsy and idealistic younger brother Julien de Saint Preux to pose as if were him to lure La Mouche. Meanwhile Julien meets the bride Caroline "Carol" Plantin (Virna Lisi), who is a revolutionary, and they fall in love with each other. When Julien learns that his brother does not have any principles or ideal, he assumes Guillaume identity and The Black Tulip to support Plantin (Francis Blanche) and his group in the revolution. Will they succeed?

"La tulipe noire", a.k.a. "The Black Tulip", is an entertaining adventure of a Zorro-like anti-hero. The plot is very funny until the point when Julien is arrested. Guillaume's sacrifice is silly and the conclusion is awful and messy, with Julien celebrating the revolution with Caroline and totally forgetting his brother and his body.My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Tulipa Negra" ("The Black Tulip")

First of all, this film has nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas' great novel, which takes place entirely in Holland in the 17th century and mainly is about cultivating tulips, which was a craze in Holland at that time. In the novel they struggled with the challenge of bringing forth an entirely black tulip, which is botanically impossible. Here they present black tulips galore, as if they grew in thousands, like another signature of another scarlet pimpernel, which underscores the aburdity of the script of this film, which is practically all nonsense with great sequences of sword-fighting, colourful rides and excursions, great chases on horseback, plenty of romantic flirts and courting and a thronged mess of general fighting. The colours and cinematography is outstanding like the dazzling show-off of brilliant French theatre and diction, but the script is just awful, all characters being casually superficial and disturbingly cynical, with only Akim Tamiroff standing out as something of an original character, but you are never informed of why and how he was ultimately hanged. This is casual superficial entertainment in dashing colours and swashbuckling splendour but nothing else, with no realism and no link with reality at all. Pity, because Christian-Jacque made some of the most brilliant costume films of France, the greatest being perhaps "Fanfan la Tulipe" 1952 with Gerard Philippe and Gina Lollobrigida, which was much more ingenious and original.

Just for cape and sword adventure fans, "The Black Tulip" is the French version of Zorro. Very much alike. There's Alain Delon in the main role for the ladies and he is not bad. You'll also find Virna Lisi in one of her early works rendering an acceptable work too. But if it comes to acting, veteran Akim Tamiroff is the clear winner in a supporting role as a villain noble. Photography and shooting on location in real palaces and old European cities add to the movie and a sort of sticky tune helps too.

But what "The Black Tulip" really lacks is the sense of passion and real heroism American classics of the genre usually transmit, this being really odd since most of them are usually located in Europe including France. I think the director didn't make up his mind whether this would be a serious swashbuckler with a touch of humor or a comedy with a touch of serious adventure. So it didn't work neither way.

Nonetheless the film is entertaining and worth a watch.

....,even when he's not at his best are always better than the rest.Although it's a swashbuckler,an action-packed story ,it's the kind of movie which loses much of its strength when watched dubbed .Released at the end of the swashbucklers era ,whose hero was most of the time Jean Marais ,"la tulipe noire" is more tongue in cheek,more picaresque,more libertine,closer to "Tom Jones " than "le bossu" or "le miracle des loups" .Christian-Jacques and Henri Jeanson wanted to match the scale and quality (and commercial success and critical acclaim) of their earlier and better "Fanfan la tulipe" (1951).In both works ,they take liberties with history and it's much fun:in "la tulipe noire" the characters know a priori that the 14th of July will be an important date ,they talk about revolution before the storming of the Bastille;and in the last pictures ,they say people will remember the 19th (!) of July.The villain (the evil prince who comes with his army to kill all the Parisians) about to be executed by the rebels says "I will remember my death all my life".

Alain Delon plays two parts ,twins ,and he's well cast as the dazzling heroes ,even if Jeanson deflates them a bit.Henri Decae' s cinematography is as splendid as ever.However the plot is sometimes confused and Philippe De Broca's "Cartouche" starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and released at the same time,is more rewarding .

NB:it has nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas's novel,which took place in Holland where the hero was trying to create a ...black tulip.