LES SEINS DE GLACE/ ICY BREASTS/ SOMEONE IS BLEEDING (Georges Lautner, 1974)

When Delon died, the obituaries acknowledged his beauty and his stardom but were a bit sniffy about his acting. Watching his films from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies, mainly in genre movies that he often produced himself, I’m amazed by his range: he plays working class blokes, aristocrats, haute bourgeois, gangsters, outsiders, villains; and he’s convincing as/in all. The only thing I haven’t seen him in is stylised comedy. I’ve also noted his generosity. He often turns over the films, in which he is always top-billed, to his female co-star (Annie Girardot in TRAITEMENT DE SHOCK or Mireille Darc in SEINS DE GLACE, often delaying his appearance until ¼ or a 1/3 of the way into the narrative). He’s completely self-assured, relaxed, and unafraid to surround himself with the very best actors (Signoret, Meurisse, Gabin, Girardot etc., all in this period). And for a man of such beauty, he lacks vanity. Note how he’s filmed in LE GITAN, stubbly, tired, puffy-eyed, from unflattering angles; and think how Warren Beatty in the same period would never have allowed himself to be thus filmed (remember the hassle Beatty put the marketing department through to make sure his crotch was right in the posters for HEAVEN CAN WAIT).

In LES SEINS DE GLACE Claude Brasseur, cuddly and open-faced (he sleeps under a Snoopy blanket) falls in love with a mysterious woman walking on the beach. He asks her out and she eventually consents. She’s afraid. But of what? Is someone after her? Certainly corpses seem to multiply in her wake. But is it her, or is it Alain Delon, her lawyer, completely besotted with her but unfortunately married?

LES SEINS DE GLACE is clearly designed as a showcase for Mireille Darc, Delon’s then girlfriend, and she does have a fabulous body, fully on display, but has a simian lower jaw, which careless cinematography by Maurice Fellous here highlights, and a limited range of expression. That said, this is an efficient psychological thriller, with a surprisingly romantic if dark ending, heavy-handed in its symbolism, making too much use of the zooms so characteristic of the period but sufficiently entertaining. It was a considerable hit.