Une Belle Fille Comme Moi [Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me] ** (1972, Bernadette Lafont, André Dussollier, Claude Brasseur, Charles Denner, Guy Marchand, Philippe Lèotard, Anne Kreis) – Classic Movie Review 3013

Co-writer/director François Truffaut’s 12th film from 1972 is a comfortable and familiar-feeling black comedy but it is not at all compelling or distinguished. It stars Bernadette Lafont, the lead of his very first film, Les Mistons, in the unsympathetic role of a nymphomaniac who sets out to use her sex appeal to exploit her male victims.

Lafont plays voluptuous seducer and murderess Camille Bliss, who tells her story from her prison cell to a young sociologist criminologist called Stanislas Previne (André Dussollier), ranging back over her life of crime and a series of messy relationships and torrid love affairs. Camille is accused of murdering her lover Arthur (Charles Denner) and her husband Clovis (Philippe Lèotard).

The normally immaculate director Truffaut is found seriously wanting with this misdirected comédie-noire black comedy. With its tone off key, it is shrill, overheated and decidedly unfunny.

Nevertheless, there are still pleasures to be found, notably in the acting, especially of Lafont in a fine performance that is the film’s main compensation, as well as by Dussollier, Claude Brasseur, Charles Denner, Guy Marchand, Philippe Lèotard and Anne Kreis. And of course it is as beautifully crafted as ever, with excellent cinematography by Pierre-William Glenn and lovely score by Georges Delerue.

It is a bit of a backhanded compliment, but it is fascinating to see Truffaut on an off day.

Truffaut and Jean-Louis Dabadie adapt Henry Farrell’s novel Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me, which was also the Ameican film title. In the UK at the time it was named A Gorgeous Bird Like Me but now it is titled A Gorgeous Girl Like Me.

Classic Movie Review 3013