''Web of Passion'' (also released as ''Leda'', original French title: ''À double tour'') is a 1959 French/Italian psychological thriller film directed by

Claude Chabrol Claude Henri Jean Chabrol (; 24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010) was a French film director and a member of the French New Wave (''nouvelle vague'') group of filmmakers who first came to prominence at the end of the 1950s. Like his colleagues an ...

and based on the novel ''The Key to Nicholas Street'' by American writer Stanley Ellin. It was Chabrol's first film in colour and his first thriller, which would be his genre of choice for the rest of his career. The film had a total of 1,445,587 admissions in France.

Plot

In a country mansion in

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

, Henri and Thérèse live in grand style with their two grown-up children, Richard and Élisabeth. A small villa next door is taken by a beautiful young Italian artist called Leda, who turned up with an ebullient Hungarian friend Laszlo. Leda has started a romance with Henri while Laszlo has got engaged to Élisabeth, to the dismay of her mother. Seeing Leda's pain at being in love with a married man who still shares his wife's bed, Laszlo urges Henri to leave home and make a new life with Leda. The son Richard, seeing his mother's pain and shame if she loses her husband, goes secretly to the villa and kills Leda. After a peremptory investigation, the police arrest the innocent milkman. Working out that the person with motive and opportunity was Richard, Laszlo waterboards him in a pond and extracts a confession for the ears of Richard's family only. Thérèse wants the secret kept in the family but Élisabeth says he must confess to the police and save the milkman. After asking Henri if he can forgive him, which the father cannot, Richard goes off to the police.

Cast

* Madeleine Robinson as Thérèse Marcoux *

Antonella Lualdi Antonella Lualdi (born Antonietta de Pascale, 6 July 1931 – 10 August 2023) was an Italian actress and singer. She appeared in many Italian and French films in the 1950s and 1960s, notably in Claude Autant-Lara's film ''The Red and the Black'' ...

as Leda *

Jean-Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (; 9 April 19336 September 2021) was a French actor. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward, frequently portraying police officer ...

as Laszlo Kovacs *

Jacques Dacqmine Jacques Dacqmine (1923–2010) was a French stage, film and television actor.Hayward p.242 He was married four times, including to the actress Odile Versois. Partial filmography * '' Premier rendez-vous'' (1941) - Un élève du collège (uncre ...

as Henri Marcoux * Jeanne Valérie as Élisabeth Marcoux *

Bernadette Lafont Bernadette Lafont (; 28 October 1938 – 25 July 2013) was a French actress who appeared in more than 120 feature films. She has been considered "the face of French New Wave". In 1999 she told ''The New York Times'' her work was "the motor of my e ...

as Julie, the maid *

André Jocelyn André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as well in Portugal, ...

as Richard Marcoux * Mario David as Roger, the milkman * László Szabó as Laszlo's friend

Production

Produced by Robert and Raymond Hakim, it was Chabrol's first big-budget color film. It was shot by cinematographer Henri Decaë on location in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence, or simply Aix, is a List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, city and Communes of France, commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. A former capital of Provence, it is the Subprefectures in France, s ...

Reception

Madeleine Robinson won the

Volpi Cup for Best Actress The Volpi Cup for Best Actress is an award presented by the Venice Film Festival. It is given by the festival jury in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance from the films in the competition slate. It is named in honor o ...

in 1959 for her role in this film. With 1,445,587 admissions in France, it was Chabrol's third most popular film in his career. The ''

Film Quarterly ''Film Quarterly'' (FQ), published by University of California Press, is a journal devoted to the study of film, television, and visual media. When FQ was launched in 1945 (then called ''Hollywood Quarterly''), it was considered "the first serious ...

'' reviewer wrote: "Chabrol here shows himself as a sort of cross between Hitchcock... and Minnelli", and praised the film's "flamboyant, glorious color" and "astonishing tours de force camerawork." '' Time Out'' commented: "Chabrol's third film, greeted at the time as a Hitchcock pastiche,... has gained considerably in stature," and added that "the climactic murder of the mistress... reveals the first glimpses of the

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), better known as Fritz Lang (), was an Austrian-born film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety Obituari ...

influence later to flower in Chabrol's work." Roy Armes was more critical, saying that "Chabrol's lack of feeling for his characters and love for overacting becomes evident in his handling of the minor characters, and the love scenes which should be moving are simply cinematic clichés."

References

External links

*
Film page
at Le Film Guide {{Paul Gégauff 1950s thriller films French thriller films Films directed by Claude Chabrol Films with screenplays by Paul Gégauff Films based on American novels 1950s French-language films 1950s French films Films scored by Paul Misraki Films shot in Aix-en-Provence French-language thriller films Provence in fiction