The Bride Wore Black

Truffaut suggests a nation straining to burst its carapace of moralism. The film's subject and its object converge in the same self-liberating social revolution that would shake the country the following year.

With its summery, Mediterranean surface, Jeanne Moreau as the ultimate femme fatale heroine and a knife-twisting tale of murderous revenge and unexpected romance, "The Bride Wore Black" is well worth rediscovering.

For all of Truffaut's digressive asides, deadpan gags, and lyrical cinephiliac touches, his slow-starting movie is overly schematic, emotionally shallow, and not so much fun.

Unfortunately, Truffaut fell into a pit of awkwardness on the project; editingwise, he's hardly in the league of Hitchcock, his sequences rushing ahead, his ironies too obvious.

Miss Moreau remains one of the screen's great actresses, and there is a supporting cast of unusual quality.