The Ambitious One

The Ambitious One (1959)

L'Ambitieuse

This Yves Allegret film is set in French Polynesia and stars Edmond O'Brien, Richard Basehart, Andrea Parisy, Nicole Berger and Reg Lye. Basehart is the black sheep of a wealthy family of mining financiers based in France. He dumps the family life style and heads to Tahiti to make it on his own. His wife, Andrea Parisy, is less than amused with Basehart's choice.

Date of release
1959-10-14
TMDB
7.8 / 10 (2)
Runtime
1h 29m
Genres
Drama
Director
Yves Allégret

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Tahiti

The Restless and the Damned is a 1959 French-Italian-Australian drama film co produced by Lee Robinson. It was shot on location in Tahiti and the Tuamotu Islands. There are French and English-language versions.

Production

The movie was the last of three co-productions Australians Lee Robinson and Chips Rafferty did with French companies in the late 1950s, after Walk into Paradise and The Stowaway. The films were shot in English and French versions with a combined Australian and French crew.

Rafferty and Robinson contributed £40,000 of the film's budget, coming from hire of studio facilities to two films shot in Tahiti and their involvement in several episodes of the US documentary series, High Adventure.

Robinson said they did not have the funds to be a full partner in the film but they contributed 30% of the costs while the French partners contributed 70%. "It's a major international film, with American stars in it, and French stars," said Robinson. "Andrea Parisy was a French star and the French ended up having to carry the whole of the load, which they could afford to do."

Robinson said "Dorfmann is one of the most brilliant producers in Europe. And if we could have maintained some working relationship with Dorfmann, we might have got somewhere. He's a very talented producer."

Edmond O'Brien later said his net from the film "will obviously exceed the $150,000 or $200,000 most actors can hope to realize from a Hollywood salary." Producer Dorfman claimed "The revenue a European production can get without a Hollywood star is, at best, limited.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended