The Restless and the Damned (also known as L'Ambitieuse) is a 1959 French-Australian film co produced by Lee Robinson. It was shot on location in Tahiti and the Tuamotu Islands. There are French and English-language versions.

The Restless and the Damned
French poster
Directed by	Yves Allégret
Written by	René Wheeler
Based on	novel Manganese by François Ponthier
Produced by	Robert Dorfmann Lee Robinson
Starring	Edmond O'Brien Richard Basehart
Cinematography	Carl Kayser Henri Persin Louis Stein Giles Bonneau
Edited by	Albert Jurgenson
Music by	Henri Crolla André Hodeir Ray Ventura
Production companies	Silverfilm (France) Australian Television Enterprises (Australia)
Release date	15 October 1959 (France)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	Australia
Languages	English French
Box office	767,540 admissions (France)[1]

Synopsis

In Tahiti, an ambitious woman, Dominique, promotes the fortunes of her husband, George, by extracting money from George's family to finance his operations and seducing a prospective business partner. But when George decides to leave her for another woman, Claire, she tries to kill him.[2]

Cast

• Edmond O'Brien as Buchanan
• Richard Basehart as George Rancourt
• Andrea Parisy as Dominique
• Nicole Berger as Claire
• Nigel Lovell as Andre
• Reg Lye as Mathews
• Jean Marchat as Uncle Albert
• Denise Vernac as Aunt Edwige

Production

The film was shot in late 1958. Originally Lee Robinson was to direct the English-language version but after a few days Yves Allégret directed both.[3]

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.[4]

Edmond O'Briens fee was more than $200,000. He was cast on the strength of his performance in The Girl Can't Help It("it was considered a comedy of importance" said Dorfman) and his Oscar. The film was also known as The Ambitious.[5]

Release

The film was a box office failure and did not achieve cinema release in England, the United States and Australia and ended the feature film partnership of Chips Rafferty and Lee Robinson.[6] It was sold to American TV under the title The Climbers.

References

External links

• The Restless and the Damned at IMDb
• The Restless and the Damned at National Film and Sound Archive
• The Restless and the Damned at Oz Movies

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