blanche-2 Rene Clement again directs Alain Delon, this time in Joy House, a 1964 film that covers a lot of genres - thriller, noir, suspense, and romance.Delon plays a criminal on the run. He enters a place for homeless people on the Riviera and two women serve soup there, played by Lola Albright and Jane Fonda.The women bring him to Albright's mansion -- she's a wealthy woman who works at saving people. Fonda is her cousin and falls hard for Delon and tries to seduce him. Meanwhile, someone is trying to poison him and his former gang knows where he is and is out to get him. Interesting film, with the highly underrated Lola Albright giving an excellent performance as a beautiful but tough woman. Fonda, who says her French wasn't very good, is excellent as well as gorgeous. Of course Delon was better looking than both of them, and while his character is attracted to the Albright character, I don't know why he wasn't attracted to Jane.The end of this film is wild and really brilliant.The film explores the idea of prison. Sometimes even without bars, you can be a prisoner.

Dalbert Pringle Initially I had thought 1964's Joy House was supposed to be a rip-roarin' Comedy (and a lame one at that). But I quickly found out that it was a dead-serious Thriller.Perhaps I was in the wrong frame of mind when I sat down to watch this picture, but, whether a Comedy or a Thriller, I thought Joy House stank in the worst possible way imaginable.Set in the ritzy district of the French Riviera (and directed by French film-maker, Rene Clement), I found Joy House to be a piece of empty-headed fluff that might have benefited some had it been filmed in colour.Joy House stars shallow, French actor (and all-round pretty-boy), Alain Delon, who (without his looks) couldn't act his way out of a wet, paper bag, even if his life depended on it.This film's cast also included 2 big-name, American actresses, Jane Fonda and Lola Albright. At first I thought these women's characters were a lesbian couple, but that assumption soon proved to be an error.Since this was a French production (with English subtitles), both Fonda and Albright's voices were dubbed (badly) and this annoyance, of course, proved to be yet another strike against this dimwitted picture that steadily began to grate on my nerves, big-time.From my perspective, Fonda and Albright's characters were truly sickening. These 2 bitterly jealous women (living under the same roof) were both vying for the attentions of the same man (Delon) and, as a result, they came across as being nothing but ruthless, calculating sluts.Joy House's story has small-time con-man/gigolo, Marc (Delon) on the run from a group of bungling hit men. Marc takes refuge in the posh mansion of a wealthy widow (Albright) who lives there with her cousin (Fonda).It's from this point (when Marc encounters these 2 women) that Joy House's already faltering story completely falls to pieces and lost my overall interest, altogether.

fred-ze-bug I have read someone talking about rené clair - hahaha ! The director is rené clement and he's made lot of classic, lot of wonderful movies as "jeux interdits", "la bataille du rail", "plein soleil" and this one, in the middle of the french cinema golden age. People talking about rené clair instead of rene clement could not be reliable at all - or john huston and john ford are the same person. Brainless often speaks like brainfull... So, here we go, Delon needs to hide and these 2 women accept to hide him from police in their beautiful house - but, what u see is not what is real, like Hitchcock used to do to fool his audience, and soon you'll learn, as the poor delon learns, that these charming ladies are worse than the police... Women here are pretty modern, and men are toys for them, toys u can tear apart, toys u can leave in a room til u need them, men slaves to their desire and will. And what was at the beginning just a hide and seek with the police become a nightmare and a jail for a man totally under control of 2 women - like women had been toys for men for centuries... And this is the modern part of the movie, the raising power of women in the world and the unability for men to take back the control of their lives. Delon is handsome as the devil, but a devil ruined by women, with no escape, and what was only a runaway movie becomes a nightmare movie - watch it til the end ! Without hesitation --> 9/10

sutul3d This movie is wonderful! Very suspenseful, sexy and well acted. Jane Fonda is great and Alain Delon just freezes the screen with his coolness. Action packed and full of twists and turns. Get this movie if you can! You will not guess the ending. If you like cool cars, great B&W shots, 60's seduction and French movies in general this is the one for you. Everything that was missing from THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY is in this forgotten gem.