The Black Tulip

France, on the eve of the revolution. Count Guillaume de Saint Preux is an aristocrat who lives in the salons; at night he puts on a mask and becomes the bandit called the Black Tulip, robbing the nobility. The people take him for a hero. One night he takes a wound to the face and can no longer go about without a mask. He sends for his brother from the country; Julien is his exact likeness. He asks him to take on the part of the Black Tulip. Julien accepts but carries the work somewhere other than his brother intended: he makes contact with the peasants and the revolutionaries. On one side robbery, on the other an uprising. Christian-Jaque directs. Alain Delon plays both brothers; Virna Lisi is in the cast. It is a French and Italian co-production. Delon plays a double role and the two characters face each other in the same scenes. It was made as a large budget swashbuckler and sits inside the popular genre of the period. The narrative places the class question before the revolution inside an adventure shape, but does not work it as a serious political film. The sword scenes and the riding are its centre of gravity. Its limit is depth; the characters are types and the plot predictable. Another limit is rhythm; the narrative grows heavy in the second half. Who it is for: viewers who like European adventure films of the sixties and Alain Delon. Who it is not for: it is surface level, loose with history, and the genre shape is very plain.