Merely Graphic

By Stefan Kanfer

The Y.W.C.A., Feminists in the Arts Radicalesbians, National Organization for Women--and anyone of taste will find much to girlcott in Quiet Days in Clichy.

Based on Henry Miller's squalid energetic novel, this wretchedly dubbed adaptation is little more than a spineless catalogue of affairs. Where the book had the decency to be pornographic, the film is merely graphic. All the women are passive sex objects, typified by Colette (Elsebeth Reingaard), a 15-year-old imbecile who literally has no idea what the men are doing to her.

The seducers, Joey (Paul Valjean) and Carl (Wayne John Rodda), are portrayed as expatriate sexual conquistadores, but their conversation is self-defeating. Typically, Joey apostrophizes an ideal "woman in whom prudery and lasciviousness battle for supremacy." Thanks to a prudish legal system that forbids the guillotining of people who speak that way, the pair are allowed to continue yapping and fornicating until even Director Jens Jo/rgen Thorsen wearies of the charade.

Thorsen might have trouble handling a Baby Brownie (the film is full of unfocused "stills"); the motion picture is manifestly beyond him. In his paws Miller's flow is halted, his sexual humor and energy rendered impotent. It is difficult to imagine why the U.S. Customs Bureau seized Quiet Days in Clichy (a federal judge later declared it prurience-free). As a matter of fact, the author might have a case suing for damages. What was true of the film Tropic of Cancer (TIME, March 2) is truer still of Quiet Days: Miller should be obscene but not hurt.

Stefan Kanfer

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