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11/06/2013

The Bride Wore Black/La Mariée Était en Noir (1968) - Truffaut lets Moreau serve revenge ice cold

♥♥♥♥

 

An original black and white French poster for François Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black, which is a legitimate, delectable piece of poster art


A woman is turned into a widow prematurely on her wedding and subsequently seeks out the five responsible men in order to kill them one by one.

The Bride Wore Black is written by Jean-Louis Richard (Fahrenheit 451 (1966)) and French master filmmaker, co-writer/director François Truffaut (The 400 Blows/Les Quatre Cents Coups (1959)), whose 6th feature it was. The title is a literal translation of the original French title. It is an adaptation of the same-titled 1940 novel by Cornell Woolrich (Black Alibi (1942)), written under the pseudonym William Irish. 

The film can be viewed as Truffaut's homage to Alfred Hitchcock, his idol whom he had just made an interview book with. The score is by long time Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann (Psycho (1960)), and cinematographer Raoul Coutard's (Le Trèfle à Cinq Feuilles (1972)) photographic style is Hitchcockian and very much of its time.
The Bride Wore Black is a delightful, dark and uncomplicated venture. Jeanne Moreau (Jules et Jim (1962)) is hot as the Bride who ticks off names from her kill list, - all characters played by well known French actors. It is a stylish dish of cold French revenge.

Related posts:

François Truffaut: The Man Who Loved Women/L'Homme qui Aimait les Femmes (1977) - Truffaut's great thoughts on love and desire

Stolen Kisses/Baisers Volés (1968) - Minor nouvelle vague Antoine Doinel-romcom 
Antoine et Colette (1962) - Unrequited love in Truffaut's Paris

 






Watch the first minute of the film here


Cost: 747k $
Box office: Uncertain but at least 4.5 mil. $
= At least a huge hit

[The Bride Wore Black was released 22 March (West Germany) and runs 107 minutes. Shooting took place from May - November 1967 in France, including in Paris. Truffaut fought Coutard behind the camera and was not satisfied with the finished film, which was also treated harshly by French critics at the time. Even so it drew around 2 mil. admissions from France and Spain alone, coming to around 2.5 mil. $ on a 1.2 $ average ticket prize at the time. The film also reportedly grossed 2 mil. $ on worldwide rentals, mainly from outside North America. The Wikipedia page lists a 9.6 mil. $ final gross, but the source doesn't seem to back up the (very impressive if true) claim. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe and won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Truffaut returned with Stolen Kisses (1968). Moreau returned in The Immortal Story/Histoire Immortelle (1968, TV movie) and theatrically in Great Catherine (1968). The Bride Wore Black is fresh at 82 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

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