10:30 P.M. Summer

Nobody had a good word to say for this adaptation of Marguerite Duras' novel which, though a potentially good script (by Duras and Dassin), is treated so heavily that it becomes risible. Finch and Schneider play a couple deciding whether to or not, while Finch's alcoholic wife (Mercouri) goes bananas to the point of being obsessed by a local crime passionel. Much of the blame can be attributed directly to Mercouri's barnstorming performance, though the inappropriately tarted-up Spanish postcard settings don't help either. Strange that a director like Dassin, who spearheaded the neo-realist movement in Hollywood after World War II, should look so completely out of touch with any level of reality in later years.