LOVE ON A PILLOW (LE REPOS DU GUERRIER) (THE WARRIOR”S REST)

(director/writer: Roger Vadim; screenwriters: Claude Choublier/from the novel Le Repos du guerrier by Christiane Rochefort; cinematographer: Armand Thirard; editor: Victoria Mercanton; music: Michel Magne; cast: Brigitte Bardot (Genevieve Le Theil), Robert Hossein (Renaud Sarti), James Robertson Justice (Katov), Macha Meril (Raphaele),Yves Barsacq (Hotel Manager), Jacqueline Porel (Mme. Le Thiel), Jean-Marc Bory (Pierre) Runtime: 102; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Francis Cosne; Lionsgate; 1962=France-in French with English subtitles)

“Degradation gets passed off as a key to love.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Roger Vadim (“And God Created Woman “/”Hot Touch”), the former husband of Brigitte Bardot, directs this controversial misanthropic melodrama. Co-writers Vadim and Claude Choublier base it on the novel Le Repos du guerrier by Christiane Rochefort.

When the pampered middle-class bourgeois Genevieve Le Theil (Brigitte Bardot) leaves Paris for Dijon to collect an inheritance from her aunt, by mistake she goes into the hotel room of the suicidal alcoholic Renaud Sarti (Robert Hossein). The penniless man recovers from an overdose of sleeping pills in the hospital and convinces the sexy woman to take him to Paris. Though he treats her in a belittling way, Genevieve accepts him as her lover and rejects her nice guy fiance Pierre (Jean-Marc Bory) and the advice of her opinionated mother ( Jacqueline Porel). Stuck in a miserable relationship, Renaud and Genevievego to Florence for a change of scenery on the urging of his sculptor friend Kartov (James Robertson Justice).

Though Renaud is a cad who leeches off of her, he wins her heart by finally saying he needs her and begging her not to reject him.

Degradation gets passed off as a key to love, as the confused bourgeois young lady finds happiness with the creepy nihilistic wastrel.

REVIEWED ON 8/29/2016 GRADE: C   https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/