StudioCanal to Release Rene Clement's Plein Soleil

StudioCanal have revealed that they are preparing a Blu-ray release of French director René Clement's classic thriller Plein soleil a.k.a Purple Noon (1960), starring Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, and Marie Laforêt. The preliminary release date set by the studio is September 9th.

Plein Soleil was recently in restored in 4K by StudioCanal and La Cinémathèque francaise with the support of the Franco-American cultural fund (DGA, MPAA, SACEM, WGAW). The work was done by L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna.

Pre-New Wave French film noir thriller directed by René Clément, based on the novel The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith and shot on the warm and glowing Mediterranean coast. Alain Delon stars in his debut leading role as Tom Ripley, a young American who is paid by the wealthy Greenleaf family to travel to Europe to persuade his friend, errant playboy Philip Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), to return to the family home in San Francisco. When he gets there, Tom discovers that Philip has it all - including a beautiful fiancée, Marge (Marie Laforet) - and begins to covet his luxurious lifestyle. Philip, initially amused by Tom's arrival, soon tires of him, and as Tom begins to find himself excluded from Philip's coterie, his envy takes a murderous turn. Highsmith's novel was later adapted by Hollywood as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Note: In the United States, Plein Soleil is already available on Blu-ray via the Criterion Collection. See our listing and review of this release here.