The Blood of Others

Chabrol was an unlikely choice to film Simone de Beauvoir's 1945 novel about moral growth and sacrifice during the Occupation - he being more your man for moral decay, egotism and such. His response to the heroine's progress from frivolity to engagement wavers between disinterested and uninterested. And considering the Mills & Boon trimmings one sort of sympathises, what with a lovelorn Nazi (Neill), a lovelorn resistance fighter (Ontkean) and Foster - patently modern American - at the centre. An occasional scene catches fire, but mostly it's an uninspired plod through very routine material. This is the theatrical version of a three-hour TV mini-series.