Wanted: Babysitter

René Clément’s final film is an ignominious swan-song for the director of the classic Jeux Interdits (1952).

An Italian-French-German co-production filmed in English it is a hotch-potch on every level.  American B graders Vic Morrow and Robert Vaughn are teamed with a beautiful but little known American-born, Italian-based actress, Sydne Rome, in a story of disgruntled small-time actors who kidnap the young son of an American industrialist. Maria Schneider, then a hot property, plays Rome’s friend who is the unwitting “in” for the kidnappers who do not themselves realize that they are dupes.

Whilst Clément’s directing is far from pedestrian, nothing can save the film from its hybrid, semi-exploitational production values (it comes from the eclectic Carlo Ponti stable), its part-dubbed dialogue undermining any credibility and hampered editing which makes the story far from easy to follow. Small wonder that Clément effectively retired after this, never making another film although he lived until 1996.

 

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