The Robert Hossein/Frédéric Dard collaboration has often been fruitful:"toi le venin" and the overlooked "monte-charge" were interesting if minor successful films noirs.Such is not the case here.
"Les scélérats" ("the villains")casts Hossein and Morgan as American people living in France after their child's death in a car accident.They are not credible because they speak French without the slightest yankee accent.Robert Hossein barely utters one sentence in English,anyway!This wealthy couple dwells in a luxury house;across the street ,lives a French poor couple whose girl is hired as a maid by the posh people.Then the screenplay never gets off the ground.Morgan drinks ,drinks and drinks again to forget,Hossein suffers and the maid watches and of course falls in love with..well you guess it!
It's 1960,folks,and the new wave happened!So there's the obligatory endless party where the guests drink,dance and kiss,filmed in a "modern" way (see "la notte" and "l'avventura" (Antonioni) "les cousins" (Chabrol) and even "les tricheurs "(Carné)).
This is a very disappointing bore.Besides, a voice-over comments on everything the characters do,as if the audience is not able to fathom the profoundness of their psychology.
"Les scélérats" ("the villains")casts Hossein and Morgan as American people living in France after their child's death in a car accident.They are not credible because they speak French without the slightest yankee accent.Robert Hossein barely utters one sentence in English,anyway!This wealthy couple dwells in a luxury house;across the street ,lives a French poor couple whose girl is hired as a maid by the posh people.Then the screenplay never gets off the ground.Morgan drinks ,drinks and drinks again to forget,Hossein suffers and the maid watches and of course falls in love with..well you guess it!
It's 1960,folks,and the new wave happened!So there's the obligatory endless party where the guests drink,dance and kiss,filmed in a "modern" way (see "la notte" and "l'avventura" (Antonioni) "les cousins" (Chabrol) and even "les tricheurs "(Carné)).
This is a very disappointing bore.Besides, a voice-over comments on everything the characters do,as if the audience is not able to fathom the profoundness of their psychology.