Review of The Adultress

The Adultress (1953)
6/10
Expected better
5 July 2009
Therese (Simone Signoret) is unhappily married to Camille (Jacques Duby) and lives with him and his mother Madame Raquin (Sylvie) who is also her aunt. Basically, she's married to her cousin ....in the tradition of all royal families.....Anyway, the mother is over-protective of her son and critical of Therese while Camille is a spoilt brat who is rather feeble in both character and health yet tries to maintain a bullying stand with his wife. A good example of "small man syndrome". Not surprisingly, Therese is not happy with her lot. She meets Laurent (Raf Vallone) and they fall in love. Laurent wants her to leave with him immediately and confesses to their affair to Camille. Camille's solution is to take Therese away for a break where he intends to lock her up so that no-one can get to her. They get on a train for the journey but Laurent has other ideas. A passenger on the train, Michaud (Marcel Andre) also has other ideas........Do the lovers get away?

The film is slow moving so there are moments when you think "come on lets develop this story a bit quicker!" The acting is good from the main players and Marcel Andre has a definite Robert Mitchum look to him, if slightly camp. The ending is a mess that doesn't work itself out clearly. You will need to make assumptions as to what is probably going to be the outcome. I suspect that this was not the intention as we are offered the twist at the end. However, it doesn't work because of the circumstances.

Its alright but I thought it was going to be a better film than it was.
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