cult film freak: JEAN SEBERG & STANLEY BAKER ROMANCE 'IN THE FRENCH STYLE'

Title: IN THE FRENCH STYLE Year: 1963 Rating: ***

Adapted by Irwin Shaw based on two of his novels, Robert Parrish's vehicle for American actress famous for French films Jean Seberg in IN THE FRENCH STYLE also feels like two movies in one involving two polar opposite romances...

The first with a young and opinionated French local Phillipe Forquet whose uptight, idealistic persona contrasts his innocent boyish looks, and it's unbelievable that Seberg's Christina James... an American on perma-vacation in Paris to become an artist... would have lasted in this relationship for a narrated three months, wherein the best aspects are the actual Paris exterior locations...

Jean Seberg from IN THE FRENCH STYLE

Meanwhile the following more grown-up half is mostly shot indoors, from apartment rooms to restaurants to a loud jazzy artsy shindig where the best sequence occurs before Christina's second romance with roving reporter Stanley Baker who, like hedonistic playboy Jack Hedley, treats her with respect but no love, which makes the casting of such a perfectly gorgeous ingenue seem all wrong...

But she hits the right notes when her progressive father visits... their one major sequence as Addison Powell's Mr. James tells Christina exactly what she needs (not wants) to hear is more interesting than all the sweet-nothings by those random suitors: who not only don't deserve her company but hardly fit the movie...

Jean Seberg in IN THE FRENCH STYLE

At least not the one starring Jean Seberg, who often seems like she's being visited by various actor-friends on the set of a much deeper, richer and more intriguing art film than IN THE FRENCH STYLE, which attempts both avant garde detachment and mainstream melodrama while partially failing, twice...

But backed by gorgeous B&W French-travelogue-style cinematography, this particular STYLE is like a moving postcard that's very nice to look at... particularly Seberg, at her most beautiful here: And that's saying something.