FESTIVAL IN VENICE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31151, 30 August 1966, Page 9

FESTIVAL IN VENICE

Violent Film From U.S.

(N .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) VENICE, Aug. 28.

The twenty-seventh Venice International Film Festival opened here tonight with an elegant audience of stars watching a raw expose of lawbreaking California motorcycle gangs. The film, “The Wild Angels,” set a controversial tone. It includes scenes of unusual violence, including a near orgy in a church funera' service, and the attempted rape of a nurse. The film’s male lead, Henry Fonda’s son Peter, and director, 30-year-old Roger Corman, were in the opening night audience, which showed a return to previous years’ glamour after an attempted austerity festival in 1965. Other stars at the opening programme included the French actress, Leslie Caron, Belgium’s Catherine Spaak, Germany’s Nadja Tiller, Tina Louise, and the French singers, Francoise Hardy and Yves Montand. The female lead of “The Wild Angels,” one of two United States entries at the festival, is Nancy Sinatra, daughter of Frank Sinatra. The other film shown tonight was one of the four French entries, “Comedie,” directed by Martin Karmitz, Jean Ravel and Jean Marie Serreau.

It is an almost motionless movie. The three main characters—whose heads are the only visible part of their bodies—are a man and the two women in his life. They talk at each other about their feelings.