Eva

Two distinctly dislike-able characters circle one another amid the nicely photographed Venice and Rome locations; unable to break away, unable to be together it seems, but wrecking the lives of those around them. It's a promising scenario, a glamorous setting, a combination of strong cast, top name director and highly rated cinematographer. One could easily imagine Antonioni at the helm with Monica Vitti and Marcello Mastroianni as the stars. But it's not them and it really doesn't work. In the male lead role Stanley Baker is well cast as an out-of-place writer from the Welsh Valleys who's made it big with one book and now lives on an Island near Venice, the new darling of the in-crowd. He's big, bluff and rugged with undeniable presence and a convincing aura of potential violence. He isn't exactly nice to know, but you get the feeling that the right woman could bring him round. Virna Lisi as his fiancée is that woman. A Beautiful, fragile, extremely desirable character, she clearly loves him despite being well aware of his many flaws. So what on earth Baker's character finds in love-rival Eva is the huge stumbling over which this whole movie falls. Disbelief can only be suspended to a degree. Eva isn't the sort of woman to bring out the best in anyone. She's clearly supposed to be some kind of irresistible sexual predator who the ex coal miner cannot resist but she's portrayed as frankly repellent. A pouting, scornful, self obsessed gold-digger who plays off lovers against pretend-husbands. She treats Baker's character with taunting disdain at every turn and yet he follows her like an eager lap-dog. Her character might, just might, have worked if an actress of spectacular sexual allure had been cast. Instead Eva is played by Jeanne Moreau. She's a fine actress but she has nothing of the Machiavellian Femme Fatale that the role absolutely demands. Take a look at the poster/DVD sleeve photo of her with cigarette dangling from a sour, down-turned mouth. It's clear this is an actress who's screen persona is more Bette Davis than Brigit Bardot - more Rachael Roberts than Julie Christie. She plays the role with conviction but cannot communicate the essential level of sex-appeal to make the story work, even when the demure camera work teases us with extended near- views of her undressing(this is an early 60s film, so explicit it's never going to be, a lot of wardrobe doors and bath taps are strategically positioned) it all just looks more sordid than sexy. It's just not her role and no amount of beautifully filmed scenes of a wintry Venice, or glamorous parties, or stylised interiors or Alfa Romeo sports cars can overcome that. There is also some poor direction of the actors - of Baker in particular, who gets a bit too over- Shakespearian in his emoting at times (early on - the hand clawing at the face...no Stan, you were better than that, much better) and a few scenes which are simply too set-up to be plausible.In the end its not a film that holds the attention, the characters are too unsympathetic to feel any connection with and although there are moments of poetry , as a whole it's a plodding misfire. My apologies to all fans of Miss Moreau - no offence, very few actresses could have made this role work.

Although the brothers Hakim have been made the scapegoats for their drastic cutting of Joseph Losey's film, the longueurs in the shortened version indicate that the original length of 155 minutes would have been even more tiresome. To suggest that some have done that this pretentious opus is a mutilated masterpiece requires a real stretch of the imagination.

It is customary for film historians and assorted academics to describe Losey's style here as 'baroque' which for this viewer at any rate signifies arty-farty and devoid of either structure or linear narrative. Losey had originally envisaged a score by Miles Davis which had worked so well for Louis Malle in 'L'Ascenseur pour L'Echafaud', together with some recordings of the ultimate torch singer Billie Holiday. In the event a couple of her recordings remain and we are instead cursed with an extremely irritating and intrusive score by Michel Legrand. We can at least be grateful to have cinematographers Henri Decae and Gianni di Venanzo whose images are splendid.

In a role originally earmarked for Richard Burton, fellow Welshman Stanley Baker is alas totally miscast whilst the talented but inadequately dubbed Virna Lisi is utterly wasted. It must have been quite a coup for Losey to have acquired the services of Jeanne Moreau as the title character and this exemplary artiste certainly delivers the goods as a praying mantis.

For directors seeking international recognition Italy in the early 1960's was the place to be but Losey's misguided and misjudged attempt to do an Antonioni must be accounted a failure.

I had always appreciated Stanley Baker's presence in a film but having watched him in three major roles in a brief space of time - this, HELL IS A CITY (1960) and THE CRIMINAL (1960) - I realize how undervalued his talents are nowadays! This, naturally, makes me even more incensed to have missed out on the R2 SE of another notable film of his - HELL DRIVERS (1957) - which went unceremoniously out-of-print after having been available for barely a year!!

Though not a great beauty, Jeanne Moreau manages to make her character's essential irresistibility to men convincing, while her relationship with Baker - turning eventually into humiliation - makes for undeniably compelling drama. Losey gave the two stars uncharacteristic freedom here to get under their respective characters' skin and explore their various idiosyncracies (apart from utilizing records of the era, Eve's obsession with jazz music is also reflected in Michel Legrand's original score) - which probably resulted in the film's overgenerous length (originally 155 minutes!) and its subsequent butchering by the producers - Robert and Raymond Hakim, who had previously worked with Jean Renoir on LA BETE HUMAINE (1938) and would go on to produce Luis Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR (1967)! The film, however, also allows lovely Virna Lisi to shine with her sympathetic portrayal of Baker's tragic girlfriend (later wife).

The film's uncompromising look at the jaded jet-set may have been inspired by Federico Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA (1960) - who, in turn, borrowed EVA's cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo for his masterpiece 8½ (1963)! I especially enjoyed the film's Venetian backdrop (though it occasionally relocates to Rome): Baker is ostensibly a writer whose first novel has been turned into a motion picture, which is being presented at the world-renowned Film Festival - where, ironically, Losey's own film was declined and which I had the good fortune to attend myself a couple of years ago!! Besides, the funeral-on-the-water scene reminded me of Donald Sutherland's premonition of his own death in Nicolas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW (1973), also set in Venice. I don't know how faithful the film is to James Hadley Chase's source novel but its plot of an arrogant, selfish man brought down by an even more cold-hearted femme fatale certainly recalled two masterful screen versions of the Pierre Louys novel "La Femme Et Le Pantin" made by a couple of my favorite directors - Josef von Sternberg's THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN (1935) and Luis Bunuel's THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977) - but, while still managing to make all their points beautifully, those films were much more fun!

That said, I appreciated the film even more on a second viewing via the shorter released version (also because much of the detail had been rather obscured in the murky - and, apparently, sole-surviving - print of the longer cut, complete with forced Scandinavian subtitles): while I knew that certain scenes had been removed, I can't say that I particularly missed them; however, I was surprised to see additional footage incorporated into this version that was missing from the 119-minute cut and especially a scene (which actually constitutes one of my favorite moments in the film!) where Baker stumbles and wounds his hand which Moreau finds amusing - their relationship having soured considerably by this point - and he responds by punching her in the face!!

Despite having previously made a handful of excellent films, EVA was Joseph Losey's first bona-fide attempt to break away from genre movie-making and branch out into the art-house scene: as such, the film is not only a key work in his oeuvre but also one of his most personal. It's a pity that it turned out to be such a bitter experience, with Losey subsequently disowning the 103-minute "Producers' Version" but, given that his original cut had been shorn by over 50 minutes, that's perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, that complete version seems now to be lost forever...

This film is very close, faithful to the James Hadley Chase's novel. Actually Chase gave with this book the quintessence of his whole world, whole atmosphere, among the more than one hundred books he wrote - the femme fatale, as we found in nearly each of his novels. But here you have NO criminal elements, ONLY the femme fatale line, no gangsters nor killers and blackmailers, no psychopaths either. This story is filtered, purified of allthe other ingredients that I just mentioned above.

So, back to this movie, the female character is absolutely perfect for a complex and so deep minded actress as Jeanne Moreau was all long her career. The thousand faces actress for me. The eternal search for her true identity woman on screen. Not because I am French. But she is absolutely awesome here. Back to James Hadley Chase, there were two main elements in his work. Femme Fatales and GREED, GREED, GREED. Here you have only the woman aspect. Women who ALWAYS drive men to their own doom.

If you fondly remember Jeanne Moreau from Jules et Jim, that alone will make this film well worth seeing. I recall it as a very " early 60's " movie, with not a little incoherence in the plot department. However, Jeanne Moreau's unique presence and "look" really fitted the role she played, and is something of a tour-de-force.