Very Cool!!!

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Young and beautiful Delon and Schneider are Marianne and Jean-Paul, a wealthy couple spending a torrid summer in a borrowed villa. They are lovers and cannot keep their hands off each other. The sex card is played from the start as the only motivation of their otherwise vacuous lives. However, apart from the sex, they do not seem to have much to do or say to each other. Their common friend Harry happens to be in the neighborhood and they invite him over, with his pubescent daughter Penelope (played by Birkin, who was well over twenty at the time, but definitely looking younger).The arrival of the second couple adds considerable sexual tension. Harry and Marianne were lovers and Jean-Paul is jealous. Marianne acts ambiguously, flirting with Harry. Jean-Paul toys with Penelope, creating a stifling, sexually-charged atmosphere, in the lazy summer days. For a while nothing much happens, apart from the couples enjoying the pool of the title and inviting friends for a party.However, the tension reaches melting point. Besides having a sadistic streak, Jean-Paul turns out to be a cold-blooded murderer, drowning Harry for reasons difficult to understand. The murder passes off as an accident, but Marianne is suspicious, She finds out the truth and considers leaving Jean-Paul, but the final frame shows them together. We can assume that sexual attraction is stronger than any moral instinct and that they will continue their frolic - at least until the passion lasts.Very voyeuristic movie, with a Schneider at the top of her game, seductive yet fragile and very beautiful. Delon, wooden as usual, still manages decent interpretation. Birkin is terrible, could not act.The 2015 remake "A bigger splash" is vastly inferior, from the choice of cast to the plot development. Swinton is a far cry from luminous Schneider, having only a fraction of her allure. Johnson is as bad as Birkin and less believable as a teenager. Only Fiennes makes a more engaging Harry, fleshing out a part than in this movie is more ambiguous.

Almost inevitably this movie is destined to be compared to The Swimming Pool, which was released some 34 years later. Actually there is no comparison given that Deray's movie is light years ahead of Ozon's. In Ozon's defense he was lumbered with Charlotte Rampling and Ludo Savignier whilst Deray was blessed with Romy Schneider and also had on hand the classiest actor in either movie, Paul Crauchet. It's touching that with police force in Marseilles, inundated as they are by organized crime, gang wars (in fact Deray's very next film, again featuring Alain Delon, was Borsalino), drug cartels, prostitution etc, are quite happy to devote so many man hours to investigating the only slightly suspicious death of one of the rich parasites who come down to the Riviera for a month or so and contribute virtually nothing to either the economy or culture of the region. Because the investigator is played by Paul Crauchet the sequences involving him add gravitas to the last three or four reels. I had never seen it before but it appears to have aged well, more, I suspect, than one will be able to say of the Ozon entry in thirty years time.

La Piscine stands out the atmosphere of a quiet summer vacation in Saint-Tropez, that is away from all the tourists and partying. A dull vacation? Not for the happy ones who can be content with "love and fresh water" (as we say in French). That's the starting point. The opening shots establishing this are probably the best part of the movie. Yes, once in a while the first reel contact is not on a part with the rest.The first time I saw it, La Piscine left me with a good impression. The atmosphere was sufficient for my pleasure, the whole plot consistent and above all you felt on holiday with the characters. Now on second viewing you can't but feel sorry for Delon as Romy Schneider and Maurice Ronet clearly are in charge there. Even with the sometimes (very) weak lines they shine. On second viewing you also notice that the furniture in the house are ugly, that the director does a poor job (ah those awful zoom shots and unnecessarily moving camera...).On the whole it could have been quite a bit better. Still worth watching for the opening scene, Romy, Maurice Ronet, and Romy again.

We can only buy the NTSC VHS released in French Canada in 1970's.......Alain Delon plays a French writer having an affair with Romy Schneider, a successful journalist. At a swimming pool in St. Tropez......a record executive (Maurice Ronet) arrives with his nubile young daughter (Jane Birkin). Harry and Marianne were once lovers and he makes a pass at her. Meanwhile, Jean-Paul makes a pass at Harry's daughter. After some drinking, Harry and Jean-Paul fight, resulting in Harry being pushed into the pool and drowns......the young couple tries to get their stories straight in order to avoid being charged with murder in this sometimes masochistic feature from France.....French Language Jacket and the version we find in Quebec is French Language with No English Subtitles.....Running Time is 2 Hours 03 Minutes.....We no longer buy ex-rentals because most have been tampered with......