More from the movie corner of Graziella: Purple Noon
This week’s film, Purple Noon, is a double tribute: to the writer of psychological thrillers Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train was her first novel to be adapted for the screen by no less than Alfred Hitchcock) and to the French star Alain Delon (here “at his most impossibly beautiful” as the Criterion Collection website puts it). Rene Clement’s 1960 Purple Noon was the first film appearance of Tom Ripley, a charming and literate anti-hero who gets away with murder. This story would be remade in 1999 as The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon (and Ripley would appear in other films played by the likes of Dennis Hopper and John Malkovich). Purple Noon’s original French title is Plein Soleil, “full sun,” and indeed Ripley’s ingenious machinations profit by the Mediterranean light and turquoise sea that act as their picturesque backdrop- a backdrop that as we enter into a New England Fall you are sure to enjoy.
Watch Purple Noon on Kanopy here.
