Les Dames Du Bois Boulogne (1945)

After she is spurned by her lover (Paul Bernard), a society woman (Maria Casares) concocts a plot for revenge. She arranges for him to meet a young girl (Elina Labourdette), a former prostitute and cabaret dancer that is trying to put that life behind her. Based on the novel JACQUES LE FATALISTE by Denis Diderot (with Jean Cocteau adapting it for the screen) and directed by Robert Bresson (DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST). This was only Bresson's second film and it's rather lush and elegant without the austerity of his later and more famous movies and reputedly Bresson disowned the film and refused to talk about it. The narrative is very similar to LES LIAISONS DANGERUSES. I found it absorbing although the ending seems like a cop out, a tearjerker of a "happy" ending. Still, the movie is a favorite of Jacques Demy, Francois Truffaut, Bernardo Bertolucci and Jacques Rivette, so it has its proponents. Oddly enough, I liked Casares' malevolent scorned woman much better than Bernard's obsessive stalker (toward Labourdette) of a lover. With Lucienne Bogaert and Jean Marchat.