Rapture (1965 film)
Rapture (French: La fleur de l'âge) is a 1965 French-American film directed by John Guillermin, and starring Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Gozzi, and Dean Stockwell.
| Rapture | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | John Guillermin |
| Screenplay by | Ennio Flaiano Stanley Mann |
| Based on | Rapture in My Rags by Phyllis Hastings |
| Starring | Melvyn Douglas Patricia Gozzi Dean Stockwell |
| Music by | Georges Delerue |
| Cinematography | Marcel Grignon |
| Edited by | Max Benedict Françoise Diot |
Production company | Panoramic Productions |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox International Classics |
Release date |
|
Running time | 104 minutes |
| Country | France United States |
| Language | French English |
Plot
Young teenager Agnes, her retired widower father, and their caretaker Karen, live in an old house on the Brittany coast in France. Agnes, who is immature and perhaps backward, has been removed from school and lives an isolated and childlike life.
While walking home from church, they witness a prison bus crash. The convicts attempt to flee and are shot at by the guards. One knocks down a guard and injures him before escaping.
Agnes finds the convict in their shed: in her imagination, she thinks that she has created him from a scarecrow and belongs to her: she does not tell the police about him. The family hide him and he stays for a while. The gendarme dies and the police believe the family know something about the fugitive. He and Karen become close but Agnes catches them kissing and attacks Karen, who leaves.
The fugitive leaves separately, refusing to go with Karen, but Agnes follows him and he brings her home. A relationship develops and, after, her father objects, they leave together for a town. However, she struggles to manage a household and returns home. The police question her about her absence. She says nothing but the fugitive, following her home, is seen, chased and killed.[1]
Cast
- Melvyn Douglas as Frederick Larbaud
- Patricia Gozzi as Agnes Larbaud
- Dean Stockwell as Joseph
- Gunnel Lindblom as Karen
Reception
Time magazine called the film a "penumbral play of love against loneliness" that "boost[s] the artistic stock of English director John Guillermin" and "clinch[es] the reputation of France's 15-year-old Patricia Gozzi."[2]
According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $2,500,000 in rentals to break even and made $1,310,000, meaning it made a loss.[3]
See also
References
- Rapture on IMDb
- "Darkness in Brittany". Time. August 27, 1965. Retrieved 2011-11-05.
- Silverman, Stephen M (1988). The Fox that got away : the last days of the Zanuck dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox. L. Stuart. p. 324.