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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9786305943679
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 6305943672
Label: Image Entertainment
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Image Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: August 08, 2000
Running Time: 91 minutes
Sales Rank: 91270
Studio: Image Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: 1964-11
Editorial Review:
Description:
He couldn't leave it alone... He couldn't leave it alive... The glamorous and sun-soaked French Riviera is the setting for intrigue, seduction and murder as the legendary Rene Clement (Purple Noon) directs an all-star international cast in 'Joy House.' A playboy and small-time con man, Marc makes the dangerous mistake of having an affair with a gangster's wife and finds himself on the run for his life. He thinks he's found the perfect hideout when a rich American widow and her sexy niece hire him as their live-in chauffeur at their posh villa. But Marc soon discovers that he is not the only refugee in this mysterious house where he is caught in the passionate snares of both women, who are full of deadly surprises. French heartthrob Alain Delon (Any Number Can Win) stars opposite two-time Academy Award-winner Jane Fonda (Klute, Coming Home) in this slick, sultry thriller.
Amazon.com:
Besides showcasing Barbarella-era Jane Fonda in one of her sexiest roles, Réné Clément’s thriller Joy House offers enough psychological suspense to count as horror. In it, Marc (Alain Délon of Purple Noon) agrees to indentured servitude to two women, Melinda (Jane Fonda) and her Aunt Barbara (Lola Albright) who hide him from police following a crime he has committed. Though the ladies appear from the outset to have renounced corruption for a life of monastic charity, their catfights over Marc result in his being trapped inside their castle, glamorously located in the French Riviera. The harder he tries to escape, the more he realizes he is trapped in the web woven by these two spider-like villainesses. Joy House’s suspense is wrapped in elegance. The stars, its settings, and the film’s score by Lalo Schifrin lifts it out of the B-movie, Hammer-film haunted house tale category. Like so many classic horror movies, most of the action takes place in a grand chateau, allowing Joy House to revel in its sense of claustrophobia. This recalls Mario Bava films, such as Black Sabbath and Hatchet for the Honeymoon, though the sexual tension implicit to Joy House is more akin to Jean Rollin’s movies, which focus as much on physical attraction as impending death. It also recalls Mommie Dearest or All About Eve, in which an elderly female competes with the younger for attention. Mirrored closet doors and reflective furniture throughout the mansion, as well as car rear-views, emphasize deception thematically in an especially Giallo way. However, there is zero gore here, and this film shies away from direct violence in favor of the implied, which is more in line with its sexually deviant undertow. --Trinie Dalton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A New Wave-Gothic-Noir Soufflé
I remember seeing Joy House (Les Felins) when I was about fifteen and thinking it was a long and boring affair. Well time changes things and with luck a little sophistication comes with age.
Upon revisiting the film I found it a fun French-New Wave-Gothic-Noir romp along the Riviera at the height of the jet set age. The film is a mystery and my review will leave the plot just that for you (I hate so called reviews that are just a synopsis of a film and nothing else). I will say this ... Read More
Rating: - Gripping all the way through.
What a fun, fast-paced movie. Alain Delon stars as Marc, a man being hunted by the husband of a woman he's had an affair with. When he takes refuge in a shelter, two "philanthropist" American beauties, the widow Barbara (Lola Albright) and her younger American cousin Melinda (Jane Fonda), rescue him and appoint him their personal chauffeur.
What follows is an erotic and creepy adventure between these people that strikes with several brilliant twists just when we imagine we've been comfortable ... Read More
Rating:  - Joyless Exercise
This meandering noir brought to my mind a French word...ennui. The story goes nowhere the acting is pedestrian with the possible exception of a winsome young Jane Fonda. The best part of the film is the twist ending but if the rest of the film lays an egg who cares. Forgettable in the extreme.
Rating: - Jane Fonda classic from Rene Clement
Finally, a proper transfer of this 1964 early Jane Fonda classic from noted French director Rene Clement. Koch Lorber has done a fantastic job of issuing this - it's in the proper aspect ratio, with what appears to be a new transfer, and they've provided the English language version as well as the French language version released in the country of origin (with optional English subtitles for that version!). Bravo!
Rating: - A bloody tale of irony!
Rene Clement was one of the supreme French filmmakers of his generation and found in Alain Delon (don' t forget his previous collaboration in that cult movie "Purple noon") personage to express the contradictions of a handsome guy who is chased and decides to seek refuge in a gloomy mansion.
A dark and somber Noir film. Absolutely recommended
Good entertainment.
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