Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Bride Wore Black/La Mariée Était en Noir (1968) - Truffaut lets Moreau serve revenge ice cold

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.

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.]

What do you think of The Bride Wore Black?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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11/06/2013

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

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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