Purple Noon

Celebrate the life and career of the legendary French film star Alain Delon at this big screen presentation of the classic 1960 thriller, Purple Noon, featuring the actor in his breakout role as Tom Ripley in the first film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel, The Talented Mr. Ripley!

Alain Delon was at his most impossibly beautiful when Purple Noon was released and made him an instant star. This ripe, colorful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s vicious novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by the versatile René Clément, stars Delon as Tom Ripley, a duplicitous American charmer in Rome on a mission to bring his privileged, devil-may-care acquaintance Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet) back to the United States. What initially seems a carefree tale of friendship soon morphs into a thrilling saga of seduction, identity theft, and murder. Featuring gorgeous location photography of coastal Italy, Purple Noon is crafted with a light touch that allows it to be at once suspenseful and erotic, and it gave Delon, who went on to star in such classics as Le Samouraï, The Leopard and La Piscine, the role of a lifetime.  (Dir. by René Clément,1960, France, in French with English subtitles, 117 mins., Not Rated)