Mississippi Mermaid (1969) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy) and Tuna

It begins with a factory and plantation owner (Jean-Paul Belmondo) on the island of Reunion waiting at the dock for Carole, his classified-ad bride, who is to arrive from France on the ship Mississippi. He knows her appearance from a photograph, but doesn't see her at the pier. Disappointed, he walks back to his car where a stunning woman is waiting, claiming to be Carole. She tells him that her appearance is unexpected because she had actually sent him a picture of her friend, a less attractive woman, so that he wouldn't decide to marry her for her looks alone. This is a fair point since the woman is Catherine Deneuve. He then admits he also lied by telling her that he was a foreman, so that she wouldn't marry him for his wealth alone.

So they go ahead with the wedding, and everything is blissful for a while. Their marriage goes great, and they put all their liquid assets in joint bank accounts. But we see her sneak off one day to meet with someone on the island. Who could this be? We don't know. Then something strange happens. Belmondo gets a letter from Carole's sister accusing him of doing something bad to Carole, because she hasn't written or called home in weeks. Belmondo innocently calls home and tells his wife to call her sister, but when he gets home from work that day, an alerted Deneuve has cleaned out their bank accounts and fled the island. Belmondo and the sister figure out that Deneuve was a con artist who killed the real Carole and impersonated her, obviously with the help of an accomplice. The deceived husband and the aggrieved sister jointly hire an expensive detective to track down Deneuve.

There is this little problem, however, in that she's technically a murderess. She and her accomplice tossed the real Carole overboard. And there is also the matter of the detective, who finally catches up with Deneuve, and will not be bribed off the case by Belmondo, because of his obligation to Carole's sister. So Belmondo kills him and buries him, then goes back to Reunion to sell his estate and his business, finally returning to Deneuve to begin life on the run.

This life is not so bad at first, since they have a ton of cash, and nobody knows that the detective is dead, but luck intervenes again. A fluke flood uncovers the buried body, and police begin searching for them in earnest. The police arrive in their room one day while they are out to eat, and they can't go back to the room after dinner, which means they have to leave behind all the cash, and live not only on the run, but penniless as well.

How does it get resolved? You'll have to see the movie to find out, but I think it's fair to say that the ending is not what you expect, and you will probably find it refreshing.

I should now be telling you that you have to own this movie. After all, it's fundamentally an interesting story, written and directed by Truffaut; it stars Deneuve and Belmondo; the breathtakingly beautiful Deneuve takes off her shirt twice; the backdrop includes spectacular locations on the tropical island and in the south of France; and the original 2.35 aspect ratio is now seen for the first time outside of a theater.

Don't get carried away with enthusiasm. The film also has some major negatives:

• If you have been paying attention to the plot summary, you know that this script has a gigantic plot loophole. We're not talking some minor quibbling point here, but simply a big ol' flub! You'll recall that Deneuve and her co-conspirator killed the real Carole on the ship, whereupon Deneuve took her place. Unfortunately, this simply could not have happened. They would not have done that because at that time Carole did not know that she would end up married to a rich man. She thought she was going to the island to marry a poor and humble foreman for true love! That means that Deneuve took her place in the hope of conning a poor man. Perhaps the co-conspirators are not the world's smartest criminals, but just about every criminal realizes that swindling the poor is not a lucrative activity. I haven't read the source novel (Cornell Woolrich's "Waltz into Darkness"), but based on Woolrich's excellent reputation, I don't think such a mammoth error could have been present in the book.
• Many people have argued that it was not credible for Belmondo to have forgiven Deneuve after she embezzled the money. I actually had no problem with that point, because her explanation was obviously true (she obviously had no money), and because this kind of obsession for a woman is not unknown. I did find the plot's coincidences lacking in credibility: e.g., the fact that in all of Europe she just happened to end up working in the same city as his sanitorium, and then the handy flood.
• Truffaut did one thing very irritating in his direction. He obviously figured out an excellent method to film the action in a moving convertible. The camera is placed just behind the car, so it can pick up their conversations as well as show the countryside that they traverse. This was very effective the first two times he used it in the film, once while driving through city streets, and once through a row of palm trees, but he just kept doing the same thing over and over again, sometimes for very long stretches. I'll bet 20-30 minutes of this film consists of conversations in moving automobiles.
• One other thing I found tedious was a very long scene in which Deneuve keeps Belmondo from killing her when they first reunite. She tells her life story up until their meeting at the docks, and essentially the entire scene is done with a "head shot". That was remarkably unimaginative, and the scene seems to go on forever. If I have to look at a talking head for ten minutes, Deneuve beats the hell out of Jack Black or Clint Howard, but that's a long stretch with no action.
• The film wasn't well received in the USA in the 70's, but that version had fallen prey to 13 minutes of censorship which made the complex plot and motivations incomprehensible. The DVD (original) version is still complicated, but everything makes sense now, even if there are a few too many coincidences to be believed.

Those negatives detract from the film, but they don't keep me from recommending it. No film is perfect, possibly excepting "Shakes the Clown". On balance, Mississippi Mermaid is a worthwhile film,

But there is a deal-breaker which forces me to warn you away from the DVD. The quality is poor. There are no extras except a trailer, and that's bad enough for a work of one of the masters, but the really sad part is that the film itself looks bad. The original media was obviously grainy, the color has faded, and there is damage. Apparently, no restoration work has been performed to produce the DVD version. What a disappointment. We now have beautiful transfers of all those cheesy old Jean Rollin pictures, and no decent copy of this Truffaut! I hope someone finds a pristine print or interneg or something, and gives it to the digitalization experts to restore for DVD.

The film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Deneuve at the top of their game in a film written and directed by François Truffaut. In 1969, Deneuve would have been on everyone's 10 most beautiful list, and she gave a very good performance against type. Unfortunately, since I had already seen Original Sin, this film held no surprises for me, so it was rather a long watch. It will seem much better if you do not know the story going in, but even if you know the plot there is much to observe and admire in Truffaut's approach.