NIGHT GAMES

France/US, 1980, 100 minutes, Colour.
Cindy Pickett, Barry Primus, Joanna Cassidy, Gene Davis.
Directed by Roger Vadim.

A Roger Vadim curiosity item. The English Monthly Film Bulletin described it as soft, soft core (using the analogy of off, off Broadway).

Roger Vadim, the emigre Russian director who worked for so long in France, is famous as the promoter of such sex symbols as Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda. During the fifties and sixties he made many erotic films suggestive but acceptable in their time. He was written about as a specialist director who had a flair for creating a closed atmosphere of menace and the erotic. He was still trying to do this in Night Games - however, it seems rather silly in comparison with previous films and seems an attempt at making a serious semi-soft core pornographic film. This is a pity. It seems that Vadim has not really progressed since making better similar films with Jane Fonda, for example, La Curee (The Game is Over). The film is an American/Hong Kong co production and was actually filmed in the Philippines.

Cyndi Pickett, the star, is better than her material. The supporting cast is interesting - Barry Primus is a competent actor and Gene Davis portrays a hoodlum (reminiscent of the manner of his brother Brad Davis in Midnight Express).

The film, although in the manner of Vadim's earlier films, takes some advantage of the visual freedom of the seventies and eighties.