Fan Fan The Tulip

Slaughter and sex are the ruling passions of Fan Fan The Tulip, a merry jibe at the more pretentious forms of historic motion picture. Louis XV wages lordly war across the screen, counting victory cheap if it costs but 10,000 lives. Villians are skewered on swords and hoist by powder kegs until the welkin rings. And amid the din of charging cavalry and ringing welkins, Lina Lollabridgia turns in the finest bit of provocative acting since Jean Harlow enticed Gable into lathering her back in Red Dust.

Clad in a skimpy peasant smock, and never, never, turning her back to the camera, Miss Lollabridgia prances through her role as the daughter of a recruiting sergeant for Louis' Acquitanian Regiment. She breathes her lines with such feeling and langourous gusto that the shallow hussies of the American screen are put to shame. In fact, her lush performance is at times too enthralling. During Miss Lollabridgia's more decollete scenes, those lacking at least a smattering of French will find it impossible to concentrate on the English sub-titles.

Gerard Philipe, as the raffish Fan Fan, is quite a match for his leading lady in scene stealing. Lacking her more obvious props, he forges ahead with the urbane skill that has made him one of France's top actors. Those who saw Devil In The Flesh will wonder at his transformation. No more the scrawny, introspective adolescent, Philipe is a virile and powerful hero, dispatching his enemies with a grace and athletic elan that has not been seen since the days of the elder Fairbanks.

Whether flexing its muscles or breathing sighs, Fan Fan is hilarious entertainment. Swiftly paced, with the indifference to order and logic of an Olsen and Johnson epic, this picture makes farce and slapstick seem like high comedy and arch satire. And most of the credit goes to the two stars.