The Bride Wore Black
| The Bride Wore Black | |
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The original theatrical poster
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| Directed by | François Truffaut |
| Produced by | Marcel Berbert Oscar Lewenstein |
| Written by | François Truffaut Jean-Louis Richard |
| Based on | La Mariée Était en Noir by William Irish |
| Starring |
Jeanne Moreau Michel Bouquet Jean-Claude Brialy Claude Rich Charles Denner Michael Lonsdale Serge Rousseau |
| Music by |
Bernard Herrmann Antonio Vivaldi |
| Cinematography | Raoul Coutard |
| Edited by | Claudine Bouché |
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Production
company |
Les Films du Carrosse
Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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107 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $747.000 |
| Box office | $9.6 million |
The Bride Wore Black (French: La Mariée était en noir) is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Claude Rich and Jean-Claude Brialy.
It is a revenge film in which a widowed woman hunts down the five men who killed her husband on her wedding day. She methodically kills each of the men using various methods and dressing only in white, black or both.
As the film opens, Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) tries to throw herself out of an upstairs window, but is stopped by her mother (Luce Fabiole). Julie is dressed in black and is obviously grief-stricken. In the next scene, she is more composed, telling her mother she is going on a long trip, and counting out five piles of money. She gets onto a train, but right afterwards steps down on the opposite side, hidden from onlookers.
The next time Julie is seen, her hair is different, she is wearing white, and looking for a man called Bliss (Claude Rich). He is a ladies' man who is having a party on the eve of his wedding. When Julie arrives, aloof but attractive, he cannot resist approaching her. When they are alone on the balcony of Bliss's high-rise apartment, she tells him her name and pushes him off the balcony.
Her next victim is Coral (Michel Bouquet), a lonely bachelor. She lures him to a concert and they agree to meet the following night. Before their rendezvous, Julie buys a bottle of arak and injects a syringe of poison into it. When she meets Coral at his apartment, she serves him the drink. When he collapses in agony, she reveals her identity to him. He begs for his life, explaining that it was all an accident. In a flashback, there is a wedding procession on the steps of a church; a single shot rings out and the groom falls to the ground. Julie is the widowed bride.
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Wikipedia