This remarkable film marks a culmination of Chabrol’s long association with Paul Gégauff, the bad-boy of the French New Wave whose career as a screenwriter and occasional actor was colored by his lasting reputation as a ladies’ man and a provocateur. Little known in this country, Gégauff was an early associate of Rohmer’s and worked on a number of Chabrol’s first films as well as his celebrated series of films in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Gégauff wrote Pleasure Party’s autobiographical script about the failing marriage of a solidly middle-class husband and wife who, in a last-ditch attempt to preserve their relationship, agree to the “open marriage” that results in disaster. Gégauff also, however, played the film’s lead with, quite extraordinarily, his own ex-wife and daughter acting alongside as fictional versions of themselves taking place in Gégauff’s home. – HG