Purple Noon (1960)

After I watched and enjoyed Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley, I became aware of an older version of the film, René Clément's Purple Noon (Frech: Plein soleil), both based on Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, and having read very good things about it, I checked it out. 

If you are familiar with Minghella's film or have read the novel, you already know what the movie is about. If you aren't, it follows Tom Ripley (Alain Delon), a young man who is hired by Mr. Greenleaf to retrieve his son and Tom's childhood friend, Philippe (Maurice Ronet), from Rome and bring him back to San Francisco. But Philippe has no intentions of leaving his fiancée Marge (Marie Laforêt), Mr. Greenleaf considers the mission a failure and cuts Tom off, and Tom must find another way to fund his new lifestyle.

Purple Noon's plot too suffers from some of The Talented Mr. Ripley's issues. It isn't that clever and it doesn't always make sense. In addition, the film jumps right into the story, without spending any time building Tom's background, which can be a little confusing to someone who has neither read the novel nor saw Minghella's adaptation. But just like Minghella's, Clément's film manages to grab your attention and it gets even more riveting as Tom gets rid of his rival.

And once again it happens because Purple Noon is a character-driven movie and works very well as a character study. The character of Tom Ripley, however, isn't as well-written as it was in The Talented Mr. Ripley. While he still is amoral and lacks any kind of compassion as he steals his friend's life, and the transition from playful young man to murderer is handled pretty well, this Tom Ripley just isn't that talented. He is not that deceptive and brilliant as it's only by chance that he manages to avoid catastrophe after catastrophe. Also, Alain Delon is miscast as Ripley. He is just not that believable as a goofy man who wants to be someone else. I mean, he is Alain Delon, why the hell would he want to be someone else? In spite of that, this is the version of Ripley that I enjoyed the most. First, we are told nothing about Ripley's sexuality, there are just suggestions, and I found that this really added to the character's ambiguity and mystery and made him more appealing. Second, although miscast, Alain Delon gives a much more powerful and charming performance as Ripley to the point that you end up rooting for him to get away with was he has done and succeed.

Titanus, Miramax

The supporting characters are quite thin but Clément gets the actors to give great performances anyway. Maurice Ronet is excellent as Philippe Greenleaf, and his resemblance with Alain Delon makes the story much more believable --seriously, who would mistake Matt Damon for Jude Law or viceversa?-- and Marie Laforêt does a very good job as Marge, Philippe's fragile fiancée. The only problem with the cast is Billy Kearns. He isn't that impressive, but it's not fair to blame him, after all his character is barely in the movie and Philip Seymour Hoffman was mesmerizing in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

At last, Purple Noon has a stunning cinematography that wonderfully captures the beauty of Italy, and a great musical score by Nino Rota.