Who would have thought adultery among the super rich (complete with bullfighters, Lana Turner dressed by Edith Head in expensive bad taste, and with the men spending most of their time with their shirts open to their navels) could have resulted in such a dull film?
Although surrounded by plenty of other people who show every sign of enjoying themselves, none of the principal characters ever seem to smile, read, or to care about anything other than themselves; instead spending their time sunning themselves and sulking, like characters in an Antonioni movie, but even more self-obsessed, with even more money and even less sense. (Scriptwriter Marguerite Roberts had just spent ten years on the Hollywood blacklist, so depicting the lives of the idle rich as so arid and joyless was possibly payback time.)
Both Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey could have shone in 'A Cold Wind in August', but Alexander Singer's first feature film in colour instead represented his grim surrender to mediocrity after the OTT pretension of 'Psyche 59'.
Although surrounded by plenty of other people who show every sign of enjoying themselves, none of the principal characters ever seem to smile, read, or to care about anything other than themselves; instead spending their time sunning themselves and sulking, like characters in an Antonioni movie, but even more self-obsessed, with even more money and even less sense. (Scriptwriter Marguerite Roberts had just spent ten years on the Hollywood blacklist, so depicting the lives of the idle rich as so arid and joyless was possibly payback time.)
Both Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey could have shone in 'A Cold Wind in August', but Alexander Singer's first feature film in colour instead represented his grim surrender to mediocrity after the OTT pretension of 'Psyche 59'.