The Pleasure Pit

.....To the lucky children who have never known drugs....sings Serge Gainsbourg in one of his best songs about the dealers.Gainsbourg was a singer/songwriter extraordinaire but really a poor actor;anyway ,he could not have saved this absolute dud .By far,André Cayatte 's worst effort ,with an absurd screenplay written by Barjavel (whose attempts at sci-fi are not really exciting,at least to my eyes:but this movie is not sci-fi,mind you).Most of the actors are badly directed ,and even Jane Birkin cannot convince as a junkie with an angel face.

In the past,André Cayatte had taken his movies out of the courtroom (he was unfairly nicknamed "the lawyer of cinema" by Truffaut) ,notably in his excellent "Oeil Pour Oeil" (1957).But here ,only the splendid landscapes around Katmandu are worthwhile.

In his earlier "Avant Le Deluge" ,Cayatte had also shown a youth in despair,dreaming of sailing away to the islands in the sun.But if their plan failed,the movie was really strong,one of these -it's not the only one- overlooked fifties movies.In "Les Chemins De Katmandou" , a young man,after the great disappointment of the aftermath Of May 68,leaves his mother (Elsa Martinelli was about ten years older than Renaud Verley who plays her son),and goes in search of his infamous father who never gave a single penny to them.The road to Katmandu will be a rocky one.The movie will too.