A New Kind of Love - 1963 *** 1/2

When mannish Joanne Woodward is contracted to go with her boss to Paris to 'lift' some new ideas for the latest fashion season in New York, she becomes enamoured with a caddish playboy (Paul Newman) who is there to get a scope for a new newspaper article. After a misunderstanding and a drastic makeover, Newman mistakes Woodward for an elegant, foreign debutante and starts to pursue her.
Beautiful shots of Paris, and you can see Paul and Joanne's genuine love for each other in the scenes they inhabit together.

The Soft Skin - 1964 *****

Francois Truffaut yet again serves up a sumptuous visual delight for us with this story of a famous writer who starts an affair with a woman he meets on his plane to a conference and continues the affair once back in Paris, despite being married with a small child.

You feel everything with this film. The uncertainty, the worry, the awkward moments (i.e where he has to pretend not to acknowledge her when she runs up to greet him in front of his work collegue) and they all appear true to life, as it appears this story was based upon Truffaut's own accounts of leaving his own wife for the actress Fanny Ardant.

Jean Desailly is not an attractive man, in fact his character is very unsympathetic and very shallow which makes it even more pathetic to see him throw away a good marriage with a wife who clearly loves him for someone he meets on a whim.

I have so far seen four Truffaut films that I know of: This one, The Girl Next Door, The 400 Blows, and Jules and Jim. Each one has been superb and I enjoy Truffaut's 'New Wave' approach to his film directing each time I see more.