MartinHafer When "The Adultress" (a.k.a. "Thérèse Raquin") begins, you soon see a big problem. Young Thérèse (Simone Signoret) and her wimpy husband Camille live with his mother--and this mother babies him and dominates the household. This awful woman insists that it's a woman's duty to serve her husband and romance has no place in marriage! The marriage is clearly a ponderous existence. It's obvious any sane wife would soon get sick of this sort of nothing life--and, not surprisingly, Thérèse does, though she does not yet realize it. It all begins to change when a virile working-class man, Laurent (Raf Vallone) brings the husband home one night when the husband is drunk. Laurent and Thérèse meet and things slowly begin to smolder. And, like in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", the lovers decide they cannot continue like this--and eventually they do away with Thérèse's emasculated husband. Of course, that's not the end of the story.While you might think the film borrowed from James Cain's novel, the story is actually much older (and Cain might have been inspired to write "The Postman Always Rings Twice") and is from an Emil Zola novel. The parallels are certainly obvious. However, in "The Adultress" you actually feel sorry for the wife and given the awfulness of the husband and his mother, you CAN sympathize and almost excuse the killing--especially since it was not premeditated. In the other, however, the wife is essentially an awful conniver and the husband, though old, is a decent and loving man. I actually think the way "The Adultress" constructs the story this is better, as it's much easier to connect with the characters and care about their fates. You don't so much excuse their actions but understand and empathize a bit for them. Plus, Thérèse is the opposite of Cora (from "The Postman")--she DOES have a conscience and she is not exactly evil.Overall, "The Adultress" is an excellent film with exceptional performances. I also loved the moral ambiguities about the film--ambiguities that make the viewer think. I also appreciated the very unusual and very surprising ending--it's worth it!

filmalamosa A woman (Therese) brought up by an aunt and more or less forced to marry her whiny sickly pasty fleshed cousin (Camille) has resigned herself to a dull gray loveless life working in a small fabric shop owned by her mother in law. Through accident she meets Laurent who makes a play for her and becomes her lover.This love affair intensifies and Laurent pressures Therese to leave Camille...there is a confrontation between the members of this triangle on a train and Camille is accidentally killed when an enraged Laurent pushes him off the train in a scuffle.His death is ruled accidental and all would seem to be OK until a witness shows up to blackmail the couple.The movie presents the essential theme of the original Zola novel. In the book the lovers grow to hate each other as they wait for things to cool down after Camille's death (they drown him) and there is much more twisted psychological drama between them and the mother in law. However this is a tight nice story in this form and the movie has 3 attractive good actors and is suspenseful fun entertainment.RECOMMEND

Alex da Silva Therese (Simone Signoret) is unhappily married to Camille (Jacques Duby) and lives with him and his mother Madame Raquin (Sylvie) who is also her aunt. Basically, she's married to her cousin ....in the tradition of all royal families.....Anyway, the mother is over-protective of her son and critical of Therese while Camille is a spoilt brat who is rather feeble in both character and health yet tries to maintain a bullying stand with his wife. A good example of "small man syndrome". Not surprisingly, Therese is not happy with her lot. She meets Laurent (Raf Vallone) and they fall in love. Laurent wants her to leave with him immediately and confesses to their affair to Camille. Camille's solution is to take Therese away for a break where he intends to lock her up so that no-one can get to her. They get on a train for the journey but Laurent has other ideas. A passenger on the train, Michaud (Marcel Andre) also has other ideas........Do the lovers get away?The film is slow moving so there are moments when you think "come on lets develop this story a bit quicker!" The acting is good from the main players and Marcel Andre has a definite Robert Mitchum look to him, if slightly camp. The ending is a mess that doesn't work itself out clearly. You will need to make assumptions as to what is probably going to be the outcome. I suspect that this was not the intention as we are offered the twist at the end. However, it doesn't work because of the circumstances. Its alright but I thought it was going to be a better film than it was.

writers_reign Because of the major impact they had as a team on both French cinema and cinema in general we tend to find ourselves speaking of Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert as Pre and Post their collaboration, which spanned approximately ten years and delivered seven films, Jenny, Drole de Drame, Quai des Brumes, Le Jour se leve, Les Visiteurs du soir, Les Enfants du paradis and Les Portes de la nuit, which embedded themselves in the memory-banks of movie buffs the world over. Therese Racquin is post-Prevert Carne, dating from 1953, some seven years after their final collaboration Les Portes de la nuit and although Carne was never to make a wholly satisfying film without Prevert this is not as bad as you might think. It's tempting to find echoes of Double Indemnity inasmuch as there are scenes where 1) an adulterer lover hides behind an open door and 2) the 'inconvenient' husband is murdered on a train. Against this is the fact that in Double Indemnity it was the woman (Stanwyck) hiding behind McMurray's door as he ushered out Barton Keyes whilst here it is the man (Raf Vallone) hiding behind Therese's door as she speaks to her mother-in-law and in Indemnity Stanwyck's husband (Tom Powers) wasn't actually killed 'on' the train but his body was left on the tracks as IF he had fallen off. Here the confrontation between husband, wife and wife's lover takes place on the train and results in the husband's death. There was no way that Carne was going to make a BAD film but the Prevert touch is definitely missed. Signoret is, of course, superb but Raf Vallone was way out of his league in this company. The black and white photography enhances the mood and the 'feel' is about three-quarters right but the ill-contrived deus-ex machina lets down all that has gone before. Well worth watching.