The Restless and the Damned

The Restless and the Damned (also known as L'Ambitieuse) is a 1959 French-Australian film co produced by Lee Robinson. It was shot on location in Tahiti and the Tuamotu Islands. There are French and English-language versions.

The Restless and the Damned
French poster
Directed byYves Allégret
Produced byRobert Dorfmann
Lee Robinson
Written byRené Wheeler
Based onnovel Manganese by François Ponthier
StarringEdmond O'Brien
Richard Basehart
Music byHenri Crolla
André Hodeir
Ray Ventura
CinematographyCarl Kayser
Henri Persin
Louis Stein
Giles Bonneau
Edited byAlbert Jurgenson
Production
company
Release date
15 October 1959 (France)
Running time
98 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
French
Box office767,540 admissions (France)[1]

Synopsis

In Tahiti, an ambitious woman, Dominique, promotes the fortunes of her husband, George, by extracting money from George's family to finance his operations and seducing a prospective business partner. But when George decides to leave her for another woman, Claire, she tries to kill him.[2]

Cast

Production

The film was shot in late 1958. Originally Lee Robinson was to direct the English-language version but after a few days Yves Allégret directed both.[3]

Rafferty and Robinson contributed £40,000 of the film's budget, coming from hire of studio facilities to two films shot in Tahiti and their involvement in several episodes of the US documentary series, High Adventure.[4]

Edmond O'Briens fee was more than $200,000. He was cast on the strength of his performance in The Girl Can't Help It("it was considered a comedy of importance" said Dorfman) and his Oscar. The film was also known as The Ambitious.[5]

Release

The film was a box office failure and did not achieve cinema release in England, the United States and Australia and ended the feature film partnership of Chips Rafferty and Lee Robinson.[6] It was sold to American TV under the title The Climbers.

References
  1. French box office hits of 1959 at Box Office Story
  2. "The Restless and the Damned". The Australian Women's Weekly. National Library of Australia. 1 April 1959. p. 65. Retrieved 8 March 2012.
  3. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998 p227
  4. Graham Shirley and Brian Adams, Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years, Currency Press, 1989, p203
  5. Irene Papas Will Team With Quinn: Actress Fills Out 'Navarone'; O'Brien Hails Europe's Silver Scheuer, Philip K. Los Angeles Times 22 Mar 1960: C9.
  6. 'King of the Coral Sea: Lee Robinson in interview with Albert Moran' Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture vol. 1 no 1 (1987)


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