Sometimes when classic literature was remarketed for mid-century audiences the pulp style makeovers were stretches. But in this case it works. Le amicizie pericolose is a 1964 Italian translation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 French epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, aka Dangerous Liaisons. The story features one of history’s greatest femmes fatales—Marquise de Merteuil, whose pride and sexual vanity is the seed of an unspeakable tragedy. There’s also an homme fatale—the serial seducer Vicomte de Valmont, whose dick eventually gets him in a crack so tight he can’t escape.
The book has been filmed six times, and cinephiles argue which version is the best. While Glenn Close as the Marquise in 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons was astounding, and Annette Bening’s turn as the character in 1989’s Valmont was also good, we recommend checking out Roger Vadim’s 1959 adaptation, which was set in modern day Paris. Actually, even the 1999 Gen-X version Cruel Intentions is pretty good, which just goes to show how rich the source material is. There are also Korean and Chinese versions from 2003 and 2012 respectively.
The amazing femme fatale in red mini-dress and spike heels on the Grandi Edizioni Internazionali edition above—who of course looks nothing like the hoop skirted and white-powdered Marquise de Merteuil described by Laclos—was painted by the abundantly talented Bendetto Caroselli. Repackaging classics in this way (such as we’ve shown you before here and here) is usually a form of false advertising, but in this case we suspect many readers came away satisfied.
