Publisher's Synopsis
5-disc box set featuring the work of one of France's leading stars. 'Plein Soleil' (1960) is a pre-New Wave French film noir thriller directed by René Clément, based on the novel 'The Talented Mr Ripley' by Patricia Highsmith and shot on the warm and glowing Mediterranean coast. Alain Delon stars in his debut leading role as Tom Ripley, a young American who is paid by the wealthy Greenleaf family to travel to Europe to persuade his friend, errant playboy Philip Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), to return to the family home in San Francisco. When he gets there, Tom discovers that Philip has it all - including a beautiful fiancée, Marge (Marie Laforet) - and begins to covet his luxurious lifestyle. Philip, initially amused by Tom's arrival, soon tires of him, and as Tom begins to find himself excluded from Philip's coterie, his envy takes a murderous turn. Highsmith's novel was later adapted by Hollywood as 'The Talented Mr Ripley' (1999) starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow. 'L'Eclisse' (1962), by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni completed a trilogy about doomed relationships in the modern world, and won the 1962 Cannes Special Jury Prize. Vittoria (Monica Vitti) is a young woman who breaks up with her lover Ricardo (Francisco Rabal), a bookish intellectual, and instead takes up with brash stockbroker Piero (Delon). However, there are still emotional ties between Vittoria and Ricardo. The final breakdown of Vittoria's emotional state is symbolically mirrored by Antonioni's montage of a deserted, dying city. 'Un Flic' (1972), Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, stars Alain Delon as Police Commissioner Coleman who finds himself playing a game of cat and mouse with a gang of thieves after a bank robbery in a small Riviera town goes wrong. The gang is led by Coleman's friend, Simon (Richard Crenna), a night-club owner and whose girlfriend (Catherine Deneuve) is also having an affair with Coleman. The two men find the rivalry between them increasing as the net begins to surround Simon. A stylish European take on the Hollywood storylines of the Seventies. In 'Flic Story' (1975), Detective Roger Borniche (Alain Delon), plays cat and mouse with murderer Emile Buisson (Jean-Louis Trintignant) through the streets of 1947 Paris
