PURPLE NOON (1960)

For good reason, Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’ series has had an enduring cinematic legacy, most recently emboldened by Steven Zaillian’s 2024 Netflix miniseries Ripley. An adaptation of the first of Highsmith’s five novels featuring protagonist Tom Ripley, it’s far from the first attempt to convey the perverse, shudder-inducing thrills of a psychopath’s criminal hijinks. Exactly 25 years before this, Anthony Minghella released The Talented Mr. Ripley (easily the strongest of all these adaptations), while almost four decades prior, René Clément directed and co-wrote (with Paul Gégauff) Purple Noon / Plein Soleil, an Italian and French co-production that marked the first reimagining of this seminal psychological thriller novel.

Unlike these other adaptations, Clément’s feature takes hardly any time to kickstart its main plot points, with American protagonist Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) and Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) already lounging outdoors by a café in Italy. This picturesque interaction is hampered by expositional dialogue and a score so repetitively happy-go-lucky that the one-note composition is already aggravating before the scene has even ended. As for these characters, there’s no doubting that Philippe commands Ripley’s attention, but he’s hardly charismatic. Ripley himself is still too opaque to consider deeply, especially when one is aware of the source material (or its other iterations in film and television). A cunning and charming psychopath, he’s a delightfully twisted protagonist whose quick thinking and willingness to stop at nothing to succeed are very enticing. But he can’t be too intriguing here, since at this point in the narrative he’s busy being besotted with Philippe and the affluent lifestyle his friend has.

If we’d been granted even the briefest of windows—as Ripley and The Talented Mr. Ripley were eager to do—into this protagonist’s lifestyle before this point, his social climbing and fascination with the lives of the wealthy would go a long way towards endearing him to viewers and explaining his dogged pursuit of riches. As it is, one must suffer through explanatory one-liners, the most egregious of which occurs when Ripley tells Philippe that he dislikes Philippe’s friend Freddy Miles (Billy Kearns), before Freddy asserts the exact same sentiment about this protagonist to Philippe, each man expressing their disdain for the other so plainly that there’s no semblance of characterisation in sight. While Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as Freddy in the 1999 film is easily the most iconic iteration of the character, the character’s pompousness is also apparent in the Netflix miniseries, creating a slimy figure that one loves to hate (while also appearing significantly more human than the downright reptilian Ripley).

But in Purple Noon, Freddy practically announces that he is a pompous arse from the get-go, culling any chance of authentic smarminess and ensuring that he will always be a bland presence. It’s not the only time this extended opening sequence shows its cards too easily; minutes later, viewers will be greeted to Ripley and Philippe both cupping and caressing a young woman’s body, the pair laughing in the exact same way as they stare into each other’s eyes, behaving like hyenas that have just found a small animal to kill together. There’s nothing genuine about this particular revelry or the generally upbeat tone that persists throughout this sequence.

Considering Purple Noon covers less ground than the 1999 adaptation, it surprisingly manages to fill up its two-hour runtime with ease, even if the absence of adequate set-ups makes Ripley’s gradual falling-out with Philippe far less impactful. Frankly, it couldn’t be called a falling-out at all, while ‘gradual’ is far from the appropriate descriptor of Philippe’s aversion towards Ripley’s desperation to envelop him. The beautiful, hideously seductive thing about the ‘Ripley’ stories is how this protagonist is only ever charming on a superficial level. Spend enough time with him and you’ll realise that this veneer of innocence belies his true desires, which become increasingly tied to the subject of his pining.

This is what elevated Minghella’s film from a great effort to a masterpiece. Jude Law’s effortless charm and Gwyneth Paltrow’s easygoing enthusiasm were infectious, making viewers feel like they wouldn’t mind being symbolically orphaned by this couple and sequestered in their idyllic home in rural Italy. But it’s Matt Damon’s representation of Ripley’s pining—and the awareness he develops far too late that he has fallen out of favour with the man he simultaneously wants to be with and subsume—that is the film’s shining quality. Ripley’s desperation is pitiful, especially once his one-sided love affair slips by him just as his flights of fancy seemed like they were starting to take form.

All that lies after this is calamity, with this psychopathic figure committing heinous crimes to cover up his initial murder. But it’s in the pride before the fall that the 1999 film gains its edge and identity. Its opening scene is discomforting without context and soul-crushingly sickening when it rears its ugly head by the movie’s denouement. Such twisted thrills can’t be achieved here, all down to an inexplicably rushed introduction and the fact that most of its principal cast don’t hold a candle to that of The Talented Mr. Ripley. It’s only Delon who stands a chance as a point of comparison, even if his enigmatic presence doesn’t contain the notes of desperation that Damon was so wonderful at conveying. Even Andrew Scott’s iteration of the character, who was the most reptilian of all the Ripleys, was in a pitiful state before losing everything.

These three adaptations seem as layered as Russian dolls when one pairs their effectiveness against each other. In terms of charm, the miniseries is as dour as can be; Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) and Marge (Dakota Fanning) are charisma vacuums, a bizarrely intentional choice that removes any allure to this couple beyond their enviable lifestyle. Less painfully superficial is the 1999 film, whose opening act is just beautiful enough to delude you into thinking that this protagonist has finally found a place (and people) around whom he can stop hiding. Pretence got him this far, but one starts to wonder whether this sorry soul isn’t cursed to a life of deception after all. It’s surprisingly painful to realise that this couldn’t be further from the truth, with Ripley digging himself a hole that will only sink deeper the more fervently he tries to escape it.

Purple Noon doesn’t bear any such pretences, nor does it offer the charm (or lack thereof) of its competitors. Instead, it’s mildly intriguing, with no great care made to get us to invest in Philippe or his girlfriend Marge Duval (Marie Laforêt). The couple are neither fascinating nor pathetic, even if it is faintly interesting to witness their disdain for Ripley. As for this titular character, it takes an awfully long time for him to come into his own, with some frivolous scenes that are totally lacking in tension. As Ripley holds up the body of a man he murdered that day while two religious figures pass by, there’s no illusion that he will be caught. The scene is absurdly overlit, exposing his obvious deception and the ridiculousness of his attempt to act as if his friend is inebriated or sick. Even as this story escalates further, notes of tension over this character’s deceptions being found out rarely amount to anything thrilling.

It’s only in Purple Noon’s final act that Clément dares to take us deeper into this world, with some well-timed close-up shots that prove to be just the right antidote for a mild, unremarkable misadventure. An onlooker’s shifting gaze, or Delon’s look of longing that suggests he’s psychologically enveloped the man whose lifestyle he desired so greatly, finally invite us into Ripley’s paranoid and delusional perspective for good. One wishes that this could have been the case long ago, though in truth this visual device works best if it is ignored until near the end of this experience, by which point viewers will ideally have found themselves as consumed by Ripley’s strangely intoxicating allure as he was by Philippe. Instead, it’s the close-up shots themselves that offer this much-needed intimacy, where we can finally feel as if we are on the inside of Ripley’s life, looking out at the bright world around him that only he makes darker.

The miniseries’ endless litany of potential showdowns, combined with some of the most absurdly slow pacing I’ve come across in recent media, made it an interminable bore at times, but it was also daring in its stylistic and narrative intentions. The Talented Mr. Ripley, meanwhile, never truly allows us to sit with Ripley or be on his side; even when we care about his downfall, it is because he inspires a fascinating mixture of disdain, revulsion, and pity. Purple Noon takes advantage of Delon’s good looks and magnetism to make murder as much a non-issue as it could possibly be in a work like this, providing the most easygoing of all the ‘Ripley’ adaptations. Though it rejects the high-intensity thrills of Minghella’s interpretation, or the sometimes unbearable tension of Zaillian’s chillingly inhuman reconstruction, a strong final act and Delon’s striking screen presence make Purple Noon a worthwhile watch.

FRANCE • ITALY | 1960 | 115 MINUTES | 1.66:1 | COLOUR | FRENCH • ITALIAN • ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: René Clément.
writers: René Clément & Paul Gégauff (based on ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ by Patricia Highsmith).
starring: Alain Delon, Marie Laforêt, Maurice Ronet, Billy Kearns, Elvire Popesco, Erno Crisa, Frank Latimore & Ave Ninchi.