DIRECTOR: René Clément
PRODUCER: Jacques Bar
PRODUCTION CO: Cité Films
​SCREENPLAY: René Clément, Pascal Jardin, Charles Williams, based on the novel by Day Keene
PHOTOGRAPHY: Henri Decaë
EDITOR: Fedora Zicone
​MUSIC: Lalo Schifrin
WITH: Jane Fonda (Melinda), Alain Delon (Marc), Lola Albright (Barbara), Sorrell Brooke (Harry), Carl Studer (Loftus), André Oumansky (Vincent) 
​

REVIEWS

“René Clément’s brilliantly over-the-top Joy House dances on the fence between classic noir and neo-noir. Whatever we call it, it’s an outrageous concoction of Gothic gangster action murder mystery set on the Cote d’Azur and starring French sensation Alain Delon and that quintessentially modern American actress, Jane Fonda, accompanied by one of the most brazen musical scores in all of noir. Delon plays a con artist womanizer named Marc who’s running from a gangster whose wife he had seduced and finds shelter in a Catholic mission. When two strange, beautiful, black-clad philanthropists (Fonda and Lola Albright) stop by the mission with donations, they home in on Marc and take him home to their neo-Gothic mansion, ultimately offering him a job as live-in chauffeur. It’s not long before Marc is juggling affairs with both women, but the more he learns about their mysterious pasts, the more the gangsters on his tail don’t look so bad… Delon’s physicality during his extended capture and escape from gangsters rivals that of Tom Cruise, and the third act, in which secrets and plots are unleashed with explosive force, the film is a thrill ride deserving of reassessment.”

– Heart of Noir

“A neglected masterpiece from director René Clément (Purple Noon, Forbidden Games, Is Paris Burning?), Joy House weaves a wicked web of hidden desires and all-too-human corruptions. Lalo Schifrin (Mission Impossible, Dirty Harry) provides the eerie musical score; Henri Decaë (The 400 Blows, Le Samouraï) serves up the sumptuous cinematography.”

– Kino Lorber

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Wellington     
Monday, 11 May, 6.00pm

Wellington     
Monday, 11 May, 8.30pm

Timaru     
Tuesday, 19 May 6.30pm

​Nelson     
Wednesday, 10 June, 6.00pm

Tauranga    
Wednesday, 08 July, 6.00pm

Auckland  
Monday, 20 July, 6.15pm 

​​Hamilton 
Monday, 27 July, 6.30pm

​New Plymouth     
Wednesday, 12 August, 6.00pm

​Palmerston North
​Wednesday, 09 September, 6.00pm
FRENCH CONNECTIONS >> 
French Connections is presented in
co-operation with the Institut Français and the Embassy of France