The subject of this film is passion; unfortunately, it is a film remarkably devoid of passion, despite its scenario that offers illicit love, jealousy and murder, and its location, set and filmed upon Cyprus, utilizing a cast that includes Greek Cypriots as supporting players and extras, and as well that splendid quality of light for which the island is noted, showcased here by cinematographer Marcello Gatti. Richard Johnson portrays Orestes, returning to his village following an absence of 15 years, to receive a bequest from his recently deceased father, and where he promptly begins an amour with the wife, Elena (Raquel Welch), of a long-time friend, she being very bored with an unrewarding existence, but their affair is suspected, leading to a grotesquely senseless climax for a film marked throughout with stylistic excesses.
Raquel Welch gets stuck with a role here which provides no range, no emotion, no expression, and very little dialogue. The picture, drably set in a peasant village on a Greek island, has an unhappily married woman and her husband, a whiny field worker, torn apart when the husband's estranged best friend returns home and sexually satisfies the wife.
A very faithful adaptation of Emile Zola's THERESE RAQUIN set on a remote Greek isle and quite ambitious if not entirely successful. Raquel Welch plays a rural peasant who's extramarital lust leads to murder but her contemporary beauty (flared nostrils, lustrous mane, and blindingly white teeth) end up a barrier to the suspension of disbelief and the lady's histrionics aren't always up to the task, either -especially when clinging to the legs of her dead husband's paralyzed mother, begging for forgiveness.
***SPOILERS*** A pretty tedious film enlivened only by Raquel welch looking a million dollars as a greek peasant girl. Richard johnson is okay but everyone else is sleepwalking.
