Plein Soleil aka Purple Noon (Region B)

Pre-New Wave French film noir thriller directed by Ren Clment, based on the novel ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ by Patricia Highsmith and shot on the warm and glowing Mediterranean coast. Alain Delon stars in his debut leading role as Tom Ripley, a young American who is paid by the wealthy Greenleaf family to travel to Europe to persuade his friend, errant playboy Philip Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), to return to the family home in San Francisco. When he gets there, Tom discovers that Philip has it all – including a beautiful fiance, Marge (Marie Laforet) – and begins to covet his luxurious lifestyle. Philip, initially amused by Tom’s arrival, soon tires of him, and as Tom begins to find himself excluded from Philip’s coterie, his envy takes a murderous turn. Highsmith’s novel was later adapted by Hollywood as ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ (1999) starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.