HIGH HEELS

Claude Chabrol, who began the French New Wave with “Le Beau Serge” in 1958, and has won a reputation as the French Alfred Hitchcock with such films as “Le Boucher” (1970), “This Man Must Die” (1969) and “Violette” (1978), now gives us HIGH HEELS, which is billed as “A comedy of questionable taste.” The film is actually a darkly satiric study of sexism, hypocrisy and the male ego. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a cowboy doctor who marries a plain woman (Mia Farrow) because he believes a man should never make a pretty woman his wife. The dictum does not prevent him, however, from engaging in an affair with his wife's sexy sister (Laura Antonelli). An illegitimate child, a crippling car accident, murder and suicide all play their parts in bringing the film to a macabre climax. Belmondo once again proves his right to the title of “the French Humphrey Bogart.” Antonelli demonstrates that she is more than just an enticing screen presence, and Farrow more than ever before asserts herself as an actress to be reckoned with.