It's a rare movie that has a chess master scoring with women as easily as Stanislav Pilgrin (Maximilian Schell) does, but it sets you up for a movie where human motivations require suspension of disbelief.
Just before Paris falls to the Nazis, he marries his lover, Michele Wolf (Ingrid Thulin), a wealthy Jewish physician who'd be better off with her colleague Charles Bovard (Herbert Lom). But never mind. She's smitten with Stan, even though she is aware of his professed venality: "If there is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, and no immortality, then anything is permissible."
Their married life lasts only minutes: as they exit the ceremony, she's abruptly seized and deported to Dachau. Stan remains in Paris, living in her sumptuous 'hôtel particulier' with their stepdaughter, the horny sociopath Fabi (Samantha Eggar), who takes Michele's place in Stan's bed. (FWIW, Stan and Fabi were even worse in the original novel, wherein he informs on his Jewish wife to the Nazis, and she isn't MIchele's stepdaughter, she's her natural daughter by a first marriage.)
Michele survives Dachau, and eventually returns to Paris. Twists and turns ensue, and you have to swallow a lot of bilge to believe that the intelligent, sophisticated Dr. Wolf would put up with Stan's hurtful behavior. But it's entertaining bilge. All four principal actors manage to be persuasive in the preposterous plot. Thulin is particularly good, but Schell just nails the vain, greedy Pilgin. Note the way he admires his luxurious head of hair every time he catches his reflection, and grooms it meticulously. The very essence of a self-obsessed man.
Just before Paris falls to the Nazis, he marries his lover, Michele Wolf (Ingrid Thulin), a wealthy Jewish physician who'd be better off with her colleague Charles Bovard (Herbert Lom). But never mind. She's smitten with Stan, even though she is aware of his professed venality: "If there is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, and no immortality, then anything is permissible."
Their married life lasts only minutes: as they exit the ceremony, she's abruptly seized and deported to Dachau. Stan remains in Paris, living in her sumptuous 'hôtel particulier' with their stepdaughter, the horny sociopath Fabi (Samantha Eggar), who takes Michele's place in Stan's bed. (FWIW, Stan and Fabi were even worse in the original novel, wherein he informs on his Jewish wife to the Nazis, and she isn't MIchele's stepdaughter, she's her natural daughter by a first marriage.)
Michele survives Dachau, and eventually returns to Paris. Twists and turns ensue, and you have to swallow a lot of bilge to believe that the intelligent, sophisticated Dr. Wolf would put up with Stan's hurtful behavior. But it's entertaining bilge. All four principal actors manage to be persuasive in the preposterous plot. Thulin is particularly good, but Schell just nails the vain, greedy Pilgin. Note the way he admires his luxurious head of hair every time he catches his reflection, and grooms it meticulously. The very essence of a self-obsessed man.