417 - The Night Heaven Fell, France/Italy, 1958. Dir. Roger Vadim.
Columbia. CinemaScope. Eastmancolor. Aspect Ratio 2.35:1. Andalusia, Spain.
Brigitte Bardot. Alida Valli. Stephen Boyd.
Director Roger Vadim seeks to recreate in Spain the success he had two years ago in Saint Tropez, on the French Riviera, when he made . . . And God Created Woman (1956).
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He brings back his wife, Brigitte Bardot. She hand picks her male co-star, Stephen Boyd. They get the one-and-only Alida Valli to join them.
He has backing. He has money. He has resources.
The small train arrives in the village.
A young Ursula Defontaines disembarks. She is coming home from the convent. She is not a nun. She was a student. And she has graduated. Time to come home and enter the adult world.
Her uncle's chauffeur picks her up in their shiny red convertible Chevrolet. He takes her luggage. She gets in. They drive up the winding gravel roads into the mountains above the sea.
Ursula is to live with her uncle and aunt, the Count Miguel de Ribera and Florentine.
The trumpet plays. Spanish percussion. Drums. Horns. Jacques Metehen oversees the orchestra, who also conducted the memorable music for Jules Dassin's Rififi (1955).
The film moves into a postcard as the credits swipe white on black. The red convertible scales the slopes.
A note:
Autrefois ceux les gendarmes traquaient sur les routes s'appelaient entre eux . . .
In the old days, those gendarmes tracked on the roads were calling each other . . .
Les bijoutiers du clair de lune.
The Jewelers of the Moonlight.
Moonlight Robbers.
Crescendo. Coda.
They enter the village. The streets are filled with people.
A girl in a bright yellow dress is brought up from the bottom of the well. She has thrown herself in. She is dead. Her mother holds her. Her mother cries.
Her brother Lamberto stands seething. He knows why she killed herself. We will find out too. She felt public shame from having been molested by the Count. Ribera is not so good a man.
Lamberto wants revenge. He will walk up the mountain to the estate. He will enter. He will confront Ribera.
But the Count's car is right there in the road. A way up. The chauffeur begins driving. Lamberto chases it. He jumps on. Crawls up. Sprawls across the trunk. Holds on to the top of the back seat within an inch of his life.
The chauffeur tries to shake him. Driving up the mountain road. Twisting and turning. Winding and weaving. Writhing and wreathing. But Lamberto holds on.
When they arrive the Chauffeur demands Lamberto leave. Lamberto gets out. The car drives in the gate. Lamberto sneaks in. The car parks. Lamberto is there.
And everything from here on will unravel.
Lamberto confronts Ribera. They fight. Ribera wins. They nurse him. Ursula feels sympathy for him. The seeds of a deeper feeling.
When Ursula lies out sunbathing in a remote spot on the estate, Ribera seeks her out. He rides his horse. He finds her. His dismounts the horse. He mounts her. She resists. She struggles. She succeeds. She runs. He mounts his horse and follows her. Ribera is a bad man.
She climbs a tree. Ribera arrives at the tree. She is trapped. A priest comes by on his buckboard at just the right moment. Ursula asks for a ride home. She is saved.
Now we know.
Florentine no longer loves her husband.
She secretly loves Lamberto.
And Ursula, who is nursing her own love for Lamberto, discovers them in their moonlight tryst.
A love triangle.
Lamberto is not so great either.
He is there for an alibi.
As he prowls around the estate at night, Ribera hunts him like a wild coyote. On his horse. With a rifle. It is dark. Lamberto has a knife. Lamberto is young. Lamberto can scale the walls and walk the roofs. Lamberto has the upper hand.
Ribera shoots. Ribera shoots. Ribera shoots. Lamberto leaps. Ribera bleeds. Ribera expires.
So Lamberto goes to Florentine hoping that she will defend him.
She will not.
Ursula will.
Ursula and Lamberto go on the lam.
And the chase begins.
Through the streets and the bullrings and the mountains and ravines.
Florentine still loves her Lamb.
Even though in rage she sends the police to capture him.
And all will converge for the final showdown.
In the bright sunlight of Southern Spain. Above the Alboran Sea.
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