Own the rights?
19 out of 21 people found the following review useful: A noire thriller from Truffaut, 27 April 2000 Author: Dennis Littrell (dalittrell@yahoo.com) from SoCal
Although Mississippi Mermaid was considered one of Truffaut's losers, it has charm and the personalities of the characters will stay with you. It's clearly better than its reputation. Said to be influenced by Hitchcock and then rendered in the Truffautian style, it is a little off the beaten track, and the coincidences are a little ridiculous. Nonetheless Catherine Deneuve is outstanding and strangely at home in a role considered by many to be out of character for her, as though Grace Kelly might play Bonnie in `Bonnie and Clyde.' This comes five years after Deneuve charmed audiences in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), and two years after her success in Belle de Jour (1967). She stars here as a skanky ex-home girl with a murderous heart. (Truffaut gives us a flashback to the dorm where they slept with the lights on and had masturbating contests.) For all her elegant beauty Deneuve does manage to look cheap and almost sleazy. In some ways she comes to life in this role more than in any other I've seen. Certainly I've never seen her sexier.Co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo is engaging as a slightly sweet and naive tobacco farmer from Reunion Island (near Madagascar) who gets Deneuve as a mail order bride, she and her bad boyfriend having first dumped the real mail order bride overboard en route. If you've never seen Belmondo you should since he was a sensation in his prime, something like a French Marlon Brando.
21 out of 26 people found the following review useful: criminally underrated gem, 5 December 2001 Author: anemoni from Thessaloniki, Greece
This is one of the best films I've seen in the last years.Belmonndo and Deneuve shine in their respective roles, he as a naive plantation owner and she as an enigmatic trickster.Words won't do this masterpiece justice,suffice it to say that this is a movie that explores the darker side of love and the pain,humiliation and capacity for self-delusion that go with it, although it's dressed as a film noir. Forget that feeble remake with Jolie and Banderas, see the genuine artticle instead and treat yourselves to some moments of great cinematic beauty.
16 out of 21 people found the following review useful: Cant get enough of Deneuve...., 19 October 2004 Author: snoozer1 from Sydney, Australia
I've slowly been collecting the films available on DVD of both Catherine Deneuve and Francois Truffaut. Both actress and director have done some stinkers in their time - fortunately Mississipi Mermaid is not one of them.Next to "The Soft Skin", coincidentally staring Deneuve's sister (the late Francoise Dorleac), this would have to be my favourite Truffaut film.As well as directing, Truffaut also wrote the screenplay. Something that always strikes me about Truffaut is his almost childlike innocence when presenting a story -- one could almost call it naivety.There's a scene towards the end of the film where Belmondo returns to the apartment in Lyon with the remains of the loot. He rings the doorbell and Deneuve answers wearing a negligee. In the time it takes Belmondo to reach their room from the street, Deneuve changes into her dress, puts on her best pair of stockings and shoes, then lies on the bed and pretends she is asleep. It's a scene that could almost come from the mind of a child - but that's Truffaut for you.Watching Catherine Deneuve in her films of the late 60's is indeed a sensory pleasure. She is so extraordinarily beautiful it is almost painful for us to watch. Incidentally, for those fans, there are a couple of topless scenes of her in this film - indeed a sinful pleasure.I disagree with previous posters. I see nothing 'Hitchcockian' about the film at all. As for the 'look' of it - i love the look of the older film stock used in the 60's. It certainly gives films of this period a unique look.Highly recommended for both Deneuve and Truffaut fans......
11 out of 13 people found the following review useful: Passion, Murder and Love That Hurts, 19 June 2008 Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, the owner of a cigarette factory Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is engaged through correspondence with Julie Roussel and he does not know her. When Julie arrives in the island to get married with Louis, he waits for her in the docks but Louis does not recognize Julie in the passenger vessel and finds that she is totally different from the picture she had sent to Louis. They get married and Louis shares his bank accounts with her. When Julie's sister writes a letter to Louis asking her sister to write to her, Louis discovers that the woman is not Julie that is missing. Further, he finds that the woman has cleared his bank accounts and left the island. Louis and Julie's sister hire an efficient private detective Comolli (Michel Bouquet) and Louis travels to France seeking the woman, but he has a nervous breakdown in Nice and is submitted to an intense sleeping therapy in a clinic. He recovers and finds that the woman, actually Marion Vergano (Catherine Deneuve), works in the Phoenix Club Privé in Antibes and lives in the low-budget Monorail Hotel. Louis breaks in her room and when she arrives from the club, she tells that she was happy with him but her former dangerous lover Richard had blackmailed her. Louis is still in love with Marion and escapes with her to the countryside. But Comolli is chasing Marion in France accused of murdering Julie."La Sirène du Mississipi" is a film-noir by the great director/writer François Truffaut, with an unconventional love story of passion, murder and love that hurts. The femme fatale Catherine Deneuve is astonishing, probably in the top of her beauty and is delightful to see her face and the topless scenes on the road and in the room. Jean-Paul Belmondo is very athletic, and the sequence when he escalates the wall of the hotel is impressive. Catherine Deneuve makes this film worth and gives credibility to the passion and lust of Louis. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "A Sereia do Mississipi" ("The Mississippi Mermaid")
7 out of 9 people found the following review useful: Truffaut's best Hitchcock film, 3 January 2004 Author: eva25at from Vienna, Austria
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
(Contains spoilers)People who put a Lonely Heart's ad in the newspaper are often idealists. They try to put into a few words everything they are and expect. The exchange of letters is full of hope...Louis Mahe (Jean Paul Belmondo), owner of a cigarette company on the ile de la Reunion (east of Madagascar) is so affected by the letters of Julie Roussell that he proposes to her. But not the expected pretty brunette comes from board of the "Mississippi", but - Catherine Deneuve. And we know from the start that she is a marriage imposter and that a crime has taken place. She shows no interest in "Julie's" wardrobe (she does not even get her trunk open) and neglects her canary until it dies. But the most basic tricks of seduction (an open zipper) are sufficient to transform Louis into a pliable little dog. First: a joint bank account. And then, when Julie's sister draws attention to herself, the flight. With 27,850 millions of Louis' 28 millions - she would have needed his signature for the entire sum.Louis and Julie's sister engage a private detective (Michel Bouquet). Louis contrives to trace Marion (Deneuve's real name) in Antibes where she works as taxi-girl - her gangster-lover left her penniless, or rather centimeless. Louis finds himself unable to kill her. She tells her story: Orphan. Precocious. Lesbian experiences. Many sugardaddies. Jail - and soon she leads him by the nose again. The detective turns out to be sly as a fox and tenacious as a blood hound; Louis and Marion bury his body in the cellar. They flee to Paris, where Louis discovers that Marion has a costly taste. She worships money like a deity. He sells his firm at a fraction of its value. But when the corpse of the detective is discovered (a flood) they have to flee again - without the money. Life in a mountain lodge, together with a whining loser - Marion can think of a more cheerful life without this appendage...A high point in the careers of everybody involved. Belmondo's self-deceit makes him nearly endearing. Deneuve looks beautiful in her wardrobe by Yves St. Laurent, and her performance is delightful: At first she fakes the fragile wifey - too timid to ask her husband for money, that's why the joint bank account is needed - but after being exposed she sounds like Katharine Hepburn in the jail scene of BRINGING UP BABY. The scenery is spectacular - the tropics, the riviera, Paris. Truffaut directs with self-evident aplomb: the sixties were the only decade when european films were head and shoulders above american productions. After this film Truffaut was able to look his idol, Alfred Hichcock, full in the face.
6 out of 8 people found the following review useful: brilliant, 23 December 2006 Author: mooning_out_the_window from United Kingdom
The film is a joy to watch, not just for the plot, which is gripping, but also for the superb performances of the actors, Deneuve and Belmondo. Though considered a 'flop' on its first release it has become a critical success, and it is clear to see why. Deneuve's acting style suited the film brilliantly. she constantly gives the impression that she is holding back or hiding something, and her character in this film is. I will not spoil it with saying what, though it is divulged fairly early on. Belmondo is lovable as the fairly naiive but in love tobacconist. I would recommend this film to all Truffaut or Deneuve fans. It is a brilliant Hitchcockian style thriller with exciting twists and interesting relationships and characters that develop as the film does. The film is approx 2 hrs, so you feel that you have not been sold short. Deneuve steals the show in this film, and it is clear that at the time of making the film Truffaut was very much smitten with her. A definite must see for any cineaste or moviefan. 10/10
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: Mrs. Deneuve & Belmondo at the tropics, 19 October 2006 Author: Cristi_Ciopron from CGSM, Soseaua Nationala 49
This movie begins at the languorous tropics,in the tropical,colonial languor,and it ends in snow,winter and cold winds.The music contributes a lot to the film's pace.La Sirène Du Mississipi is dedicated to Renoir,yes,but it constitutes an implicit tribute to Hitchcock,and there are many Hitchcockian elements that can be listed here:the score (notice that Truffaut did not like it:"the score of Mississippi Mermaid isn't very good",in a '70 interview); the photography;a certain sense of the movie as an object,as a thing of art;the irony (a bed scene is juxtaposed to the image of the money greedily caressed by Mrs. Deneuve);the fevered dream-sequence;the suspense;Mrs. Deneuve's beauty;a certain weirdness;the foreboding music.Yes,La Sirène Du Mississipi looks,indeed,very Hitchcockian,but in a meritorious and creative way.I think Truffaut saw in the Hitchcockian thrillers a genre on its own.His film is not a pastiche,but a creation in this genre.The gentleness,the ardor,the smoothness,the gentlemanly comic,the smooth-tempered frankness,the contemplation in such a dynamic show,are all Truffaut's.Mrs. Deneuve looks jaunty,fetching and fervid,and La Sirène has some fetishist notes:Belmondo burns Mrs. Deneuve 's lingerie,as if to punish his missing wife;playing the fool with Mrs. Deneuve,he hides her underwear.This is building Mrs. Deneuve's sexual myth,in a low-brow,fetishist key.Belmondo knows how to look dispassionate, credulous,agile, scatter-brained,delusion-ed, puzzled,scathing,pushing, resigned, feverish:a businessman from the Tropics,a believer in some values,educated,somehow naive and trusting ;he wears his white pullovers.As a character,"Louis Mahé" changes,evolves,multiform and malleable,and becomes more and more interesting as a man.I see Truffaut put heart in La Sirène:as I said,he dedicated it to Renoir,followed in Hitchcock's footsteps,and used an Hitchockian aesthetics,and made "Louis Mahé" read eagerly Balzac ("I love books and films equally, but how I love them! When I first saw Citizen Kane, I was certain that never in my life had I loved a person the way I loved that film. My feeling is expressed in that scene in The 400 Blows where Antoine lights a candle before the picture of Balzac.",Truffaut in '70) .But Truffaut later disowned,repudiated his fine show.The critics also treated bad "La Sirène ...".(Truffaut said:"The critics didn't like it, nor did the public--perhaps because Deneuve and Belmondo didn't appear in their usual sort of roles.")Maybe,maybe it didn't live up to its author's expectations ,he wanted to make more than an amusing and thrilling show;Truffaut wanted to make,I guess,a Vertigo or a North by Northwest of his own-that is,an ultimate masterpiece,something very poetic,etc..Well,maybe it's not all that. ("Whatever is wrong with that film is my fault and not the fault of my stars.")Though,despite the critics' coolness and even Truffaut's own disappointment,"La Sirène ..." is a movie I admire.It may not be the masterpiece wished for,it may not have lived up to Truffauts ambitions,yet it is a thrilling show and it offers much delight;it certainly has its own beauty,its picturesque,its poetry,its suspense.He wanted a masterpiece;he got a very good movie instead.It is better than "Such a Gorgeous Kid Like Me".I must say I am as excited as Truffaut was with Belmondo climbing Mrs. Deneuve's balcony.Truffaut said his "Mermaid" was "a smash" in Japan;it is obvious he did not considered it as a bad movie,but as one that could have been better.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: Romantic and suspenseful drama well realized by Truffaut in his own directorial style, 27 January 2009 Author: ma-cortes from Santander Spain
This agreeable French movie deals about a millionaire owner of a tobacco factory on an African island nearly to Madagascar named Louis(Jean Paul Belmondo). He's a single man looking wife, then he advertises a bride and gets a gorgeous woman named Julia(Catherine Deneuve). When she spontaneously appears turns out to be much more attractive than expected. He marries to Julia but she suddenly disappears.A French eye private(Michael Bouquet) is hired by Julia's sister and soon he's on the trail of his previous spouse. Later Louis encounters her in a dancing-hall under another name. In spite of the romantic delusion and everything, Louis goes on enamored with his enigmatic wife.This film is a splendid drama plenty of betrayal,deception, killing, theft and Hitchcockian suspense. Good performances by Jean Paul Belmondo as young proprietary of a cigarette company who seems determined to fall under the spell of a femme fatale and a wonderful Catherine Deneuve as suspect heroine. The film gets several references to the American cinema, but Truffaut(400 blows) was a fervent moviegoer, such as : Johnny Guitar, Colorado Jim, Bogart, and Hitchcock.The USA version was cut numerous minutes and deserves an urgent restoring and remastering. Loosely based on the novel titled'Waltz into darkness' by Cornell Woolrich (Rear window and screenwriter of Alfred Hitchcock hour) who also was adapted in 'Truffaut's The bride wore black'.Colorful cinematography by Denys Clerval(Stolen kisses) and atmospheric musical score by Antoine Duhamel, Truffaut's usual musician.This is one of the best of his suspense movies along with ¨Farenheit 451 and Shoot the piano player¨. Remade by an inferior version by Michael Christofer(2001) with Antonio Banderas, Angelina Jolie and Jack Thompson, full of erotic and lust scenes.
1 out of 1 people found the following review useful: The bones are here for a nice, nasty tale of self-destructive obsession, but then there's all that stuff about finding true love, 20 August 2008 Author: Terrell-4 from San Antonio, Texas
"Julie, you are adorable," says Louis Mahe (Jean-Paul Belmondo) to his beautiful new mail- order bride, Julie Rousel (Catherine Deneuve). "Do you know what that means? 'Adorable'. It means worthy of adoration." Louis is a wealthy tobacco grower and cigarette manufacturer on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. When Julie arrived on the island, she didn't look like the photograph she had sent him when she agreed to be his wife. She says she was timid and decided to send the photograph of her sister. Louis is enchanted by her beauty and understands her caution. They marry, and Louis becomes a husband deeply happy. He tells her she is worthy of adoration just a day or two after he arranges to change his personal and business accounts into joint accounts. That evening, Julie has disappeared, cleaning out both accounts. Louis goes to France, has a breakdown, and then by chance sees Julie in a newscast about a new nightclub and the women there who are hostesses. Louis learns she is really a woman named Marion Vergano. Marion's history would lead only the most obsessed of men to think a happy ending could be in the cards. Most of the movie places us in France after Louis has found her and accepted her as Marion Vergano Mississippi Mermaid, written and directed by Francois Truffaut, is a movie of Louis' obsession, of sexual psychosis, of parasitic selfishness, of stolen identity and of rat poison, with a lot of self-revealing (some of it even true) dialog thrown in. As much as I think comparing one director to another is usually pointless, in this case Truffaut may have watched Vertigo, Psycho and Marnie once too often. Still, murder at the top of the stairs, the star power of Deneuve and Belmondo and some eccentric passing opinions (Louis thinks Johnny Guitar is "a love story, with lots of feeling in it."), all handled with Truffaut's characteristic confidence isn't something to pass by. The downside is that Mississippi Mermaid, despite all of its advantages, at times veers too close to melodramatic parody. "You mustn't cry, my dear. It's your happiness I want, not your tears." "I'm learning what love is, Louis. It's painful. It hurts me." It sounds better in French, but the meaning is just as soppy. Truffaut adapted his movie from the pulp mystery novel, Waltz into Darkness, by Cornell Woolrich writing as William Irish. The movie didn't do too well the first time out, but then underwent a rediscovery of sorts. Unfortunately, that meant articles by people who teach film studies at universities. One such person wrote, Mississippi Mermaid "remains a fascinating exploration of the major themes essayed by movie melodramas of betrayal - a sort of distillation of the amoral nucleus of Double Indemnity and the wilder settings of Key Largo." Distillation of the amoral nucleus? I don't even know what an amoral nucleus is. The salient point, for me, is that films such as Double Indemnity and Key Largo are above all else tightly told stories. I think Truffaut with Mississippi Mermaid started with a nice, nasty, obsessional pulp tale, but then tried to do too much with it.
0 out of 1 people found the following review useful: depressingly bad movie, 12 December 2009 Author: joel-280 from United States
this is one of the more poorly made movies I've ever seen. One has to take anything by Truffaut seriously; it's not just some B-movie cranked out by hacks.evidently Truffaut couldn't decide whether he was making a noir or a sentimental chick flick. and neither could Deneuve, whose dozen (?) character flip-flops are simply unbelievable -- not even badly acted; just not acted at all. Among other things, how a woman as beautiful as Deneuve could be a person such as Julie/Marion is simply beyond anyone's ability to suspend disbelief; the role absolutely demands someone not so beautiful. Belmondo's acting also suffers although imho his character is not quite as unbelievable as Deneuve's. The cliché ending (which I won't describe) is unfortunately all too appropriate for this complete mistake.
Add another review
