When Aussies/Poms/Yanks think of French studs they normally imagine smooth-talking Charles Boyer types, dinner jackets, strong knowledge of wine and good dancing. The French take another view - studs in their films look world weary, as if they smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and drink wine for breakfast, look very tragic and well-read, as if they saw someone killed in Marseilles once and are on first name terms with several prostitutes. 50 year old Charles Dennard is the man who can't help himself when it comes to women - the first encounter we see him in engaged in borders on stalking (actually it is stalking - he uses deception to get a woman's phone number) but his success rate is fairly high.
This goes along briskly enough with that seemingly effortless Truffaut style, where the charm gradually creeps up on you. Truffaut seems a little uneasy at the criticism a sympathetic film about a womaniser would receive, so there is a scene after Dennard writes his memoirs where people at a publishing house sit around and chat about his character - is he good/bad, is he playing for sympathy (some pre-emptive criticisms - Woody Allen and David Williamson use the same technique). I wish the role of Brigitte Fossey, who is charming as Dennard's editor, were a bit bigger, she doesn't come in until the last 15-20 minutes. I really enjoyed the subplot about his crazy married girlfriend - I kept expecting her to be the one who killed him, but it doesn't happen (hey, she even takes part in a threesome). It is a bit pat in that the Reason For His Behaviour is Leslie Caron (though to be fair the film doesn't explicity say this).
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