The Last Romantic Lover (1978)

The Last Romantic Lover was Just Jaeckin’s fourth feature film. His third film, the superb Madame Claude (1977), had represented a slight change in direction. The Last Romantic Lover (based on an original story by Jaeckin) marks a much more radical departure from his earlier work.

Jaeckin was steadily growing in confidence and rapidly becoming one of the interesting film-makers in France. It didn’t do him any good. He was never going to be forgiven by critics for Emmanuelle. French critics were determined not to give him an even break and critics in other countries mostly followed suit. No matter how good his movies were critics were going to despise them. In general he is still unfairly dismissed as a maker of trash movies while critics gush over much less talented and much less interesting directors. The Last Romantic Lover is a wonderful movie that still gets very little attention.

The film begins with a visually stunning sequence of a circus funeral, but the dearly departed is not a human member of the company but the circus’s lion. It’s the first of many off-kilter subtly surreal moments.

The circus faces ruin but the circus’s owner Max (Fernando Rey) has a plan. He will persuade the circus’s lion tamer Pierre Mowgli (Gérard Ismaël) to enter The Last Romantic Lover competition. Pierre will win and the first prize is $30,000 which will pay for a new lion and clear the circus’s debts. There are thousands of entrants in this competition but the circus’s resident clairvoyant has assured Max that Pierre will at least make it to the final twelve.

The competition is the brainchild of magazine editor-publisher Elisabeth (Dayle Haddon). Most reviewers seem to assume it’s a women’s magazine but at one point it’s described as a “tit mag” so it seems more likely it’s a men’s magazine.

Elisabeth believes that women are lacking romance in their lives. The competition will find the country’s greatest romantic lover. Elisabeth is partly right. There is a lack of romance in the modern world. As we will discover Elisabeth feels that romance is lacking in her own life. Elisabeth is right about the importance of romance, but she does not really understand the true meaning of the word. She lives in the shallow fashion/media world. Romance means good-looking sexually desirable men. As the story unfolds she will learn what romance is all about.

The competition occupies the first half of the movie. It’s a lavish stylistic tour-de-force as the men are put through their paces.

Pierre does not want to win, because he knows this is not what romance is all about.

I think it’s a huge mistake to read this as a feminist movie. It’s certainly not feminist in the narrow ideological sense. It’s not anti-feminist either. It has other fish to fry. This is a movie about romance - not just the romantic love between a man and a woman but romance in a much broader sense, romance as an attitude towards life.

There are definitely two entirely separate worlds here. Elisabeth’s world is all about money, fame, success and achievement. She has no time for a proper personal life. At one point when she and her boyfriend make love they have to get it over and done with in 13 minutes so she can get to an important meeting. Sex is like everything else - it has to be done briskly and efficiently and on schedule. Elisabeth can’t figure out why she isn’t happier.

Pierre’s world is the world of the circus. No-one cares about money or fame. The circus people are happy because they are doing what they love. Max runs a circus because it’s in his blood. If he lost the circus he’d die. Pierre can’t imagine wanting to be anything other than a lion tamer.

This might sound strange but at times this movie reminded me just a little of Jean Rollin’s subtle surrealism. There’s a sense that the world of the circus is a world of magic, detached from the everyday world, a world in which things can happen that cannot happen in the real world. It’s a world of romance in the truest and widest sense of the word. All the scenes in the circus have a slight other-worldly feel. Maybe this world is less real than Elisabeth’s world. Maybe it’s more real. There’s a slight fairy tale vibe (which you also get in Rollin’s movies).

This is also a classic romantic comedy which obeys the conventions of that genre. In fact I would describe it as a screwball comedy. There’s more than a hint of Howard Hawks in this film. Jaeckin loved cinema’s past and I’m sure that this is all very deliberate. Elisabeth will have to make an important choice. Her happiness depends on making the right choice. It’s not just a matter of choosing the right man but of choosing the right world.

And then there’s the ending. You’ll have to make up your own mind exactly what it means but I think it’s perfectly in tune with the feel of the movie.

Gérard Ismaël and Dayle Haddon have terrific chemistry. They’re both delightful. Elisabeth is an interesting character. Early on she’s hard-driving and ambitious but she is never a bitch. There’s a certain underlying kindness in her.

There’s almost no nudity and the sex scenes are very restrained (and very romantic and playful).

As much as I adore Gwendoline (and I do absolutely adore it) I think The Last Romantic Lover may now be my favourite Just Jaeckin movie. It really is strange, magical, entrancing and insanely romantic. Jaeckin was one of the best and most innovative French directors of his era and he was certainly the most visually brilliant and stylish. It’s interesting than even his stylishness was held against him, leading to accusations that style was all he had to offer and that his movies lacked substance. This is quite inaccurate and it also misses the point (and it’s a point that a lot of critics miss) that style is crucial. Style is substance.

The Last Romantic Lover is very highly recommended.

The Cult Epics release (on DVD an Blu-Ray) offers an excellent transfer and quite a few extras.

Madame Claude (1977)

Madame Claude is a 1977 Just Jaeckin movie.

Just Jaeckin had what was in many ways an unfortunate career as a film director. His first movie, Emmanuelle, was the biggest hit in the history of the French film industry. And that’s what caused the problem. He was always going to be reviled by society’s self-appointed moral watchdogs but Emmanuelle made him a lot of other enemies as well. Film critics and the film industry establishment were outraged that what they considered to be a mere porno movie had made about a hundred times more money than the sorts of serious movies that they thought the public should be watching.

From the point on film critics were determinedly hostile and his chances of breaking into the mainstream film industry were zero. The notoriety of Emmanuelle had also ended his very successful career as a fashion photographer. Jaeckin fund that the only work he was going to be offered was directing erotic movies, which was not really what he particularly wanted to do.

He ended up directing just eight feature films. But his sparse filmography is actually surprisingly impressive. As far as Emmanuelle is concerned he was hired to make a very classy very stylish softcore porn movie and that’s what he did. His next movie is more interesting. The Story of O deals with subject matter, sadomasochism, that pushes people’s buttons just as much today as it did in the 70s. But The Story of O remains one of the very very few movies to approach such subject matter intelligently and non-moralistically. It’s a great movie.

The critics were really gunning for him when he made Lady Chatterley’s Lover but in fact it’s an interesting and very good adaptation of Lawrence’s novel. Gwendoline was considered by critics to be almost beneath contempt but it’s a superb fun-filled sexy adventure romp.

Which brings us to Madame Claude. Madame Claude (Françoise Fabian) runs a very high-class call-girl ring. Not just high-class. These girls are the top of the range. Their clients are generals, diplomats, princes, politicians, CEOs.

Claude is trying to recruit a new girl. Claude caught her shoplifting but thinks she has potential. Claude will remake the girl. That’s how Claude operates.

There is a problem, and it’s going to be a problem for Claude and for a lot of other people. That problem is sleazy photographer David Evans (Murray Head). David is collecting material for blackmail and he has compromising photographs of extremely important men cavorting with Claude’s girls. But there’s something else in those photos, the significance of which David doesn’t yet fully appreciate. Or at least there might be something else in the photos. What matters is that certain people think there’s something in those photos.

The CIA is convinced that the photos contain evidence pertaining to the Lockheed bribery scandal (which was one of the biggest scandals of the 70s). The CIA is obviously determined to cover up that scandal. They want those photos. But other people know about the photos and want them just as much.

The photos are the movie’s McGuffin. Everybody wants them.

This political scandal/thriller plot remains in the background for the early part of the movie but it’s always ticking away, like a bomb.

Mostly the movie’s focus is on Madame Claude and her relationship with her girls. Claude is rather fond of her girls. She expects them to remain focused on the job at all times, but she is generous and mostly treats them like daughters. She never recruits a girl against the girl’s will, the girls make immense amounts of money and she’s honest with them. She is convinced that she knows what’s best for them, and she is probably right. Madame Claude is a rather sympathetic character - she has her faults but she’s a much more moral person than any of the people out to destroy her.

This is both an erotic film and a political thriller. In fact it belongs to a sub-genre of its own, the erotic political thriller. It’s very much in the mould of 70s paranoia movies. Everybody has everybody else under surveillance. Every individual and every agency mixed up in the business is obsessed with damage limitation, and finding a way to double-cross some other individual or agency.

Madame Claude herself is caught in the middle. She has ethics. She has never tried to blackmail a client and never would, but since nobody else in the movie has any ethics they naturally assume she’s as unethical as they are.

This is very obviously a movie about voyeurism, and movies about voyeurism are always themselves voyeuristic. Voyeurism and paranoia always makes an effective combination.

Françoise Fabian is quite exceptional in the title role. The support cast is impressive. Klaus Kinski is excellent as the super-rich Alexander Zakis, a man who lives for power. Amazingly Jaeckin found Kinksi very easy to work with.

Special mention should be made of Serge Gainsbourg’s score, and of Jane Birkin’s wonderful vocals.

The Cult Epics Blu-Ray looks great. Extras include an audio commentary by Jeremy Richey and an interview withe Jaeckin in which, among other things, he talks about his contempt for the French Nouvelle Vague.

Madame Claude is a gorgeous sumptuous movie, it’s very erotic and it’s a gripping intelligent political thriller. This is a great movie. Highly recommended.