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In Honor of Alain Delon: A Star So Handsome, He Was Obliged to Underplay His Looks


Chief film critic Peter Debruge pays homage to Alain Delon, the French star who played Tom Ripley in 'Purple Noon' and a hitman in 'Le Samouraï.'

The French star, who died Sunday, made more than 100 movies in a career that spanned 50 years, but for that one transformative decade in film history — beginning with the Patricia Highsmith adaptation “Purple Noon” (“Plein Soleil”) in 1960 and stretching through to his iconic turn in Jacques Deray’s “La Piscine” — Delon came to represent an unattainable ideal, with his piercing wolf-blue eyes, Elvis Presley cheekbones and fit, ready-to-wrestle physique. It’s not entirely clear why Delon opted to dial down that restless screen energy in later roles, but one can easily distinguish a difference between the supernova charm he brought to 1964’s “The Black Tulip” (a loose Dumas adaptation in which he plays the swashbuckling twins) and the subtler, more understate appeal of his Zorro portrayals a decade later. It’s a tense thriller, but one that unfolds at a pace totally at odds with the high-adrenaline surge of contemporaneous Hollywood hits — like “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Point Blank” or the New Wave-influenced “Bonnie and Clyde.” Where Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin and Warren Beatty radiated charisma in those films, Delon stripped that element away from “Le Samouraï” (and many subsequent roles).

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