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Claude Chabrol's attitude toward the commercial assignment is humorously voiced by the Soviet envoy (Serge Reggiani) who tips lavishly at the Swiss hotel: "When in capitalist society, do as capitalist." ("Don't overdo it," says his son, attired like a pint-sized version of Michael Caine's Harry Palmer.) The MacGuffin takes off from Blake Edwards as a blue, panther-shaped bauble with ruby eyes concealing a deadly virus, according to the opening quotation the very same jewel from Shakespeare's Timon yet to the heroine just "a shabby thing, really, I could never wear it." A convent gamine with a hidden judo chop, Marie-Chantal (Marie Laforet) glides through a maelstrom of espionage imbecility in which secret agents take turns exchanging identities and Cold War clowns hold each at gunpoint with lighter-pistols. Dr. Kha (Akim Tamiroff) is a Mabuse, of course, a corrupt genius equipped with an electronic rasp and enough taste to insist on "nothing but the most refined terrorizing job." Skis spit out darts, every drink is spiked with poison, palaces give way to dark catacombs. "We do not dwell in a normal universe," the hunky emissary (Francisco Rabal) warns Marie, who nevertheless makes a point of interrupting the villain's monologue about taking over the world with her own ode to the absurdity of innocence. Luxuriant style and unflagging ebullience from alpine slopes to Moroccan bazaars, brimming with priceless cartoons like Charles Denner's Yankee attaché and Stéphane Audran's counterfeit widow. The Bond burden (cf. Losey's Modesty Blaise) and, in Laforet's drowsy hotel pirouette with the fedora-clad Audran, a little rough draft for Les Biches. With Roger Hanin, Pierre-François Moro, Gilles Chusseau, Antonio Passalia, and Robert Burnier.
--- Fernando F. Croce |