Mata Hari, agent H21

Jean-Louis Richard contributed the screenplay to some first class films of Francois Truffaut notably 'La Peau Douce' and 'La Nuit Americaine'. Here he directs his former wife Jeanne Moreau in a Truffaut screenplay There are, needless to say, a few Hitchcockian touches whilst the scenes of Mata Hari's arrest and execution are brilliantly done. Mlle Moreau in the title role combines sophistication and sensuality and she is luminous in her scenes with Jean-Louis Trintignant. Amazingly Trintignant had to wait another twenty years before being directed by Truffaut in what turned out to the latter's final film. Splendid cinematography by Michel Kelber and Georges Delerue again works his magic as composer. As with previous versions starring Magda Sonja and Greta Garbo liberties have been taken but the 'legend' of Mata Hari has so muddied the waters that we have lost sight of the truth anyway. A strong supporting cast, great sense of period and the fascinating Moreau combine to make this both absorbing and entertaining.

Ne vous déplaise ,Jeanne Moreau is French whereas Mata was Javanese .But ,after all,why not?If it were not for her and Truffaut's script ,the movie would be completely forgotten (when it was aired yesterday on the cultural French channel,a lot of people had probably never heard about it.) Truffaut's script takes liberties with history,the love interest between Moreau and Trintignant was probably made from start to finish,or at least extremely embellished .

Truffaut had probably communicated his love for Hitchcock to the director;at least three scenes display that influence: Trintignant's briefcase tied to an armchair with handcuffs ,Moreau stealing documents in the officer's house,the crossing of the border.

Truffaut's favorites have cameos :Jean-Pierre Léaud(fortunately,his stint is brief,and I will be very grateful to him cause he does not utter a single world),Charles Denner,the lovely Marie Dubois (who had played the female supporting part in "Jules et Jim").

The last pictures show how romantic TRuffaut was!

Moreau is very well as the dancer-turned-German secret agent in a wartime Paris seething with secrets and betrayal. With the world at war, love was her weapon. The only men she couldn' t seduce were the 12 in the firing squad that ended her life. In 1964 this movie was among the best, just below Dr. Strangelove, My Fair Lady, Hamlet, Il vangelo secondo Matteo, Marnie, The Night of the Iguana, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, Gertrud, Seven Days in May, La peau douce, Fail-Safe, Goldfinger O ibaba, The Best Man, Three outlaw samurai (Sanbiki no samurai), A Hard Day's Night, Zulu, The Train. Il deserto rosso, Charulata, Sedotta e abbandonata.

Does anybody know the correct aspect ratio for this film? It seems to be as mysterious as Mata Hari herself.

IMDb says 4:3, the same as the Video Dimensions (CK596) DVD package. However, the Video Dimensions disc presents the film at 1.77:1. The included trailer is 2.35:1. Scenes from the film in the trailer include material from the sides not in the film, suggesting that the film is, in fact, a 2.35:1 film cropped to 1.77:1 to avoid letter-boxing.

Or was the film shot at 4:3 and then cropped at the top and bottom for exhibition at other aspect ratios?

Adding to the confusion is that Amazon's French website lists two versions of the film at 1.66:1.

As for the film itself, after seeing it referenced in Jeanne Moreau's obituaries and after seeing Greta Garbo's 1931 version, I wanted to see Ms. Moreau's interpretation of the role. Like other great actresses, she will be best remembered for her major roles. It was a pleasure to see her here as well.

My rating of 7 is based on the fact that biopics often depict the highlights of the subject's life while fictionalizing much of the rest. I will leave it to the experts on Mata Hari's life to decide if her wartime activities depicted here are accurate.

I thought for a moment it was Gale Sondergaard under the bejewelled crown, but no - it's Jeanne Moreau as the eponymous lady who charms the pants, literally, from the French soldiers from whom she exacts more than kisses. She lives well on the proceeds of her courtesanship, but she also augments that cash by working for the Bosch towards the end of the Great War enabling them to acquire useful French state secrets. She is cold and calculating until she encounters "Lasalle" (Jean-Louis Trintignant). There's something about him that permeates her hitherto impervious armour, and though that doesn't stop her using him, unusually she begins to care. That's dangerous thing for both of them, and when he discovers that she is still trying to tap up his superiors, he decides to abandon ship before he gets hurt - well emotionally, anyway. Physically, well some shrapnel soon lays him low and brings her to his side for a reconciliation, and from her perspective, a bit of a reassessment of her priorities. Is it all too late, though? The drama is portrayed in just a bit too staccato a fashion here and though I did think there was some chemistry between the two, the story unfolds in quite an episodic manner with little real emotion to explain why she connected with him, or even why she was up to no good in the first place. Some context on that score might have elicited a little more sympathy for her but it's not there so it's left to be a slightly disappointing soapy melodrama with espionage trimmings. I did quite enjoy it, but it could have been better.