The world is filled with pain and I choose to live behind it, and see what I can find on the road! The mood of this film and its whole essence are very accurately expressed in the title song, which (in instrumental version) sounds in the credits. This song had two versions: French (Je Roule) for release in France, and English (On the Road) - apparently for international. The text is almost the same. Both versions were wonderfully performed by Petula Clark. A song about the world that makes your life gray and boring, about trying to escape from all this to meet adventure (albeit deadly, as it turns out). . . )
The film has never been released in Russian, but it is a pity: the version of Babitsky and Goldin, in my opinion, is not suitable for him in sweeps.
First, I will talk about the shortcomings, and only one drawback: lack of tension, suspense in most scenes. The intensity only grows a little by the time Dani finds Maurice Cobe's apartment and suddenly realizes that she's been there before... or hasn't been there? Or are you crazy? .
Otherwise, the film follows the form and spirit of Japrizo’s novel so closely that it looks like an illustration to it. It is not for nothing that Japrizo himself wrote the script, and shot the picture by a recognized director - Anatole Litvak. Almost everything! Besides what I pointed out above. Now for the actors, more details. And the actors here are selected cool - a whole star cohort.
Samantha Eggar. Probably, no other actress could take the role of Dani Longo. Because Samantha hit the apple. She has already played in films with a bias in the thriller - moviegoers remember "The Collector" well, where she is Miranda Gray, the victim of a maniac (Terence Stamp). That’s where I think she played great.
In the novel Japrizo described just such a Dani. Her inner fragility, vulnerability are covered by an external "armor" - cheerful, mocking, slightly cynical, so that others do not know about her fears, experiences and "skeleton in the closet" - the murder (here it is exactly murder, and so Dani herself believes) of her unborn child. To all this, we add the desperate, dizzying courage that gives her the strength to withstand, not to go crazy, and guess who the killer is, moreover, to detain him on her own.
She has her own, bright charm, which, despite all the “cockroaches” in Dani’s head, makes her believe and empathize from the first frame (first page) to the last.
Getting “in the bull’s eye” in Samantha is not only internal, but also external. She looks exactly like she did in the novel (unless she's blonde).
Stefan Odran - Anita Caraway (in the film Caldwell, the chief of the advertising agency made English). Well, you can say, Stefan did a great job. On the screen walks burned, cynical bitch in the guise of an elegant socialite. The image may be painted only in dark colors (the novel also has no others), but despite this, it is surprisingly lively, causing disgust. This is Anita, “I don’t care about you,” as she was called in the book.
Oliver Reed - Michelle Caraway (Michael Caldwell) Sir Oliver, I think he's a little under-performed, but basically, he's got a character. A kind of impeccably amiable gentleman in a needle suit. Just like Anita, although unlike her, from which, like an old sofa, the filling through the upholstery comes out, you can not see in it the habits of the sadist. And even in the finale, where he tells Dani everything, he's kind of sorry. The wife walked right and left, slept with anyone, and he endured all this. I could not stand the poor man.
John McAnery - Philip Philanteri, gigolo. John is still remembered by Soviet audiences well - it was he who played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet by Franco Zeffirelli: a mocking and cheerful hooligan, a faithful friend, a brazen red face, a person who cannot but be loved. Well, here he conquers women with his grasp and arrogance - conquers only to breed for money, beat and quit (the book describes his story in detail). Only Dani in it for the first time awakened something spiritual, human (although he tried to steal the car), struck, and in the end even scared. Well, John played their last conversation after finding a corpse in the trunk. He has so much genuine horror and mistrust in his eyes.
About secondary roles - a boy on the beach, a mechanic from the village of Avallon, truck friends Jean and Batisten, and others - we can say that they came out again "to the point" as in the book.
It is a pity that this film was not translated into Russian. He deserves it.
9 out of 10