Purple Noon
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Purple Noon (Template:Lang-fr; Template:Lang-it; also known as Full Sun, Blazing Sun, Lust for Evil, and Talented Mr. Ripley) is a 1960 crime thriller film directed by René Clément, loosely based on the 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Alain Delon in his first major film, along with Maurice Ronet (as Philippe Greenleaf) and Marie Laforêt (as Marge); Billy Kearns (an expatriate American actor well-liked in France) plays Greenleaf's friend Freddy Miles, and Romy Schneider appears briefly in an uncredited role as Freddie Miles' companion. The film, principally in French, contains brief sequences in Italian.
Screenwriter Paul Gégauff wrote a variation on the same story in 1968 when he worked on Les biches for Claude Chabrol. Highsmith's source novel was adapted again in 1999 under the original title, The Talented Mr. Ripley.
Plot
The American Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) has been sent to Italy to persuade the wealthy Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), to return to the United States and take over his father's business. Philippe intends to do no such thing and the impoverished Tom enjoys living a life of luxury, so the two men essentially spend money all day and carouse all night. Tom is fixated on Philippe and his girlfriend, Marge (Marie Laforêt), and covets the other man's life. Philippe eventually grows bored with Ripley's fawning and becomes cruel and abusive to him. The final straw is when, during a yachting trip, Philippe strands Tom in the dinghy and leaves him to lie in the sun for hours.
Back on board, Tom hatches a plan to kill Philippe and steal his identity. First, he leaves evidence of Philippe's philandering for an outraged Marge to find. After Marge goes ashore, Philippe confronts Tom, who admits his plan quite casually. Philippe, believing it to be a joke, plays along and asks Tom for the plan's details. Suddenly frightened, Philippe offers Tom a substantial sum to leave him and Marge alone, but Tom states that he can obtain this sum anyway and far more. At last, pretending to accept his offer, Tom stabs Philippe as the latter screams Marge's name. He casts the body overboard and returns to port.
Upon returning to shore, Tom informs Marge that Philippe has decided to stay behind. He then goes travelling around Italy using Philippe's name and bank account, flawlessly mimicking his voice and mannerisms; in effect, Tom has become Philippe, even affixing his own photo, with seal, in Philippe's passport. He rents a large suite in a Rome hotel.
When Philippe's friend, Freddie Miles (Billy Kearns), comes to the hotel to see Philippe and begins to suspect the truth, Tom murders him as well. Freddie's body is soon found and the Italian police become involved. Tom continues his charade, switching between his identity and Philippe's, depending on what the situation demands. After carrying out an elaborate scheme to implicate Philippe in Freddie's murder, Tom forges a suicide note and a will, leaving the Greenleaf fortune to Marge.
Tom survives a long string of close shaves, throwing the Italian police off his trail and seemingly having outwitted everyone. He even succeeds in seducing Marge, with whom he begins openly cohabiting. When Philippe's yacht is being pulled out of the water for inspection by a buyer, his canvas-wrapped body is found attached to the boat because the anchor cable it was wrapped in had become tangled around the propellor. The film ends with Tom being unknowingly called toward the police.
Cast
- Alain Delon as Tom Ripley
- Maurice Ronet as Philippe Greanleaf
- Marie Laforêt as Marge Duval
- Erno Crisa as Inspector Riccordi
- Billy Kearns as Freddy Miles
- Frank Latimore as O'Brien
- Elvire Popesco as Madame Popova
- Nicolas Petrov as Boris the dancer
- Ave Ninchi as Signora Gianna, landlady in Rome
- Lily Romanelli as Greenleaf's Housekeeper in Mongibello
- Nerio Bernardi as the Ship's Agency Director
- Template:Ill as The Belgian Lady
- Paul Muller as The Blind Man (uncredited)
- René Clément as a servant (uncredited cameo appearance)
- Romy Schneider as Freddy's companion (uncredited cameo appearance; Schneider was Delon's girlfriend at that time)
