Orchard Productions
Starring: Ingrid Thulin, Maximilian Schell, Samantha Eggar, Herbert Lom
Directed by: J. Lee Thompson

Synopsis: It is after World War II and Dr. Michele Wolf (Ingrid Thulin) returns to Paris after having suffered the horrors of a German concentration camp.  Through flashbacks she recalls her last-minute marriage to a chess-champion gigolo, Stanislaus Pilgrin (Maximilian Schell), yet she hesitates to contact him for fear of his reaction to her current feeble state.  But circumstances bring them together in the most unusual and interesting way and the story gets even more complex when it turns out that Pilgrin has been courting Michele’s daughter, Fabienne (Samantha Eggar) who stands to inherit her supposedly-dead mother’s vast inheritence.

Kitty Cameo: After Michele first meets Stanislaus he invites her back to his sorry apartment, which is poor and barely furnished.  While in his kitchen, she sees he has a cat in a cage.  She is curious if he loves the cat so much to keep it penned up and he infers that he is keeping the cat with the intention of eventually eating the animal.  However since he has met Michele and his prospects are looking up he releases the cat.  Later he gives her a small cat figurine which she has made into a brooch, and this is featured prominently in different parts of the film.

Final Mewsings: Never trust a man who would even think of eating a cat.

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