Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960

Anyone familiar with the Frears (Dangerous Liaisons) and Forman (Valmont) versions will immediately see the problem about updating this story. The innocence and lack of guile which the preyed-upon characters must embody is not convincingly available in a contemporary setting and neither, therefore, is the cruelty which exploits those qualities; and Annette Vadim's flight into madness would surely have lacked conviction even in 1782, when de Laclos was writing. Though this is the weakest of the three adaptations, it does have in Moreau and Philipe the choicest of scheming monsters. The Thelonious Monk score natters on, without discernible relevance; and Vadim himself appears at the start to put us right about men and women, deploying with exquisite negligence his cigarette holder, the overcoat draped around his shoulders. What did all those gorgeous women see in this noodle?