Purple Noon ([a.k.a. Plein Soleil] Rene Clement, 1960)

It took the discovery that Netflix are mounting a new adaptation of the misadventures of Patricia Highsmith's roguish antihero Tom Ripley - in the form of the prosaically-titled Ripley, starring Andrew Scott of Sherlock and Fleabag and unnervingly high forehead fame (seriously, why haven't Marvel cast him as the Leader?  Just paint the lad green, no CGI enhancements required) - to finally prompt me to get round to sitting down and watching "the original, you might say".  Yes, I typed that in the voice of Richard Hurndall.  This Netflix series apparently premieres (or 'drops',as we say these days about television shows as well as music [I am so down with da yoof]) this April 4th, which - should I make it that far - will be the day after my 45th birthday.  Will it be a wonderful belated present or an unwanted gift?  Time will tell, I suppose.

It always does.

Having read all five of Highsmith's Ripley pentalogy (The Talented Mr Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game, The Boy Who Followed Ripley and Ripley Under Water) in the early 2000s in the wake of Anthony Minghella's celebrated Matt Damon-starring 1999 movie of the first in the series - which, much to my chagrin, didn't spawn the requisite sequels I was awaiting unless one counts the unrelated 2002 variation upon Ripley's Game with John Malkovitch (Malkovitch Malkovitch); it does seem somewhat de rigueur to skip the second novel, as Ripley Under Ground was skipped in between the days of Rene Clement's 1960 Purple Noon and Wim Wenders' 1977 The American Friend, and again between 1999 and 2002 although there was a belated 2005 adaptation from Roger Spottiswoode that I always forget about, as seemingly does everyone else) - I have of course been meaning to watch the first cinematic version of Ripley (there had been a televised one hour live performance in January 1956 as an episode of the anthology series Studio One which sadly seems not to have been preserved as a Kinescope recording) for two decades now.  It does sometimes take me a while to get round to things.  

Procrastination's what you need if you want to be a record breaker, as Roy Castle never sang.

Hands up in honesty, though - who amung* us didn't look at the cover art of The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead album when young and want to be Alain Delon when they grew up?  I know I did.

So, briefly for those who don't know the story, the wealthy Boston Greenleafs (Greenleaves?  You do me wrong) hire Tom Ripley (Delon) to fly to the Med to bring back their errant son Philippe (nee Dickie, played by Maurice Ronet) who is living the high life of the idle rich being elegantly wasted around the Italian Riviera.  Quickly becoming quite taken with this louche Ligurian luxury lifestyle, Tom worms his way into the elite existences of Philippe and his girlfriend Marge (Marie Laforet) as well as their occasionally appearing friend Freddy (Billy Kearns) and his entourage of girlfriends - one of whom is an uncredited Romy Schneider of Sissi fame (she was da bomb in Visconti's Ludwig, yo): wouldn't we all like to spend five nights at Freddy's?

After larking about on the town and engaging in such shenanigans as buying a white cane from a blind man (Jess Franco regular Paul Muller), Philippe Marge and Tom embark on a recreational yacht trip so dripping with sexual tension that they should definitely have just organised a thrupple or a threesome or a menage or whatever and just got it over with.  This boat badly needs some bisexual lighting.  Wait - is that the purple that the English language title refers to?  MIND BLOWN.

Anyway, Tom winds up stabbing Philippe in a different way than the tension might lead us to suspect - i.e.: fatal rather than fun - and pitching the body overboard wrapped in a tarpaulin and weighed down with the anchor before taking his inveigling to its ne plus ultra by assuming the late Mr Greenleaf's identity and habits, gaslighting Marge into a relationship along the way, whilst dodging the suspicions of Freddy and the police (didn't they have a hit with 'You Were Made For Me'?).

Expertly directed by Clement (who, hopefully, didn't get too handsy with any of the female talent like he allegedly did with Jane Fonda), who sustains the suspense and tension admirably throughout as Delon's Ripley coasts through on his looks and insuppressible charm, the film is marred only by an ending that can't help but feel like a cop-out as our antagonist/protagonist exits the movie (sadly not pursued by a bear) walking into a police trap - feeling a bit like those Hong Kong movies with a mandatory 'the police must arrest anyone who breaks the law during the film' closing sequence.  An undoubtedly excellent adaptation of both Highsmith's novel and character with a mark deducted for cowardice in the face of the finale.

(*Yes, of course I spelled it like that deliberately.  I can be a silly creature of whim sometimes.  You should know that by now)