Simone Signoret

Watched Police Python 357 the other day, which features her as the wealthy, disabled wife of corrupt commissioner François Périer. She is aware of and encouraging of her husband keeping a mistress, and when he ends up killing her in a fit of passion, she uses her intellect to try to guarantee that he is not caught. This rather unsympathetic premise Signoret infuses with such tenderness that she ends up being the emotional core of the film more than Yves Montand's loose cannon cop*. She does not feel glee at her husband's lover's death, nor does she want an innocent man to be framed - no Lady Macbeth she. But she loves her husband and cannot imagine life without him, so uses her intellect (clearly superior to that of Périer's character) to guarantee his freedom.

I also revisited Casque d'Or recently and while she is of course very conventionally attractive in that again I don't feel like the femme fatale sexiness is the point so much as her character's smart, pragmatic view of life, once again coloured by love. These kinds of roles can easily move into sociopathy but with Signoret there's this emotional core behind the calculations that makes them resonate more.

Praise Simone Signoret in this thread. Or critique, if that is where you're at.

* Some meta shenanigans here, of course - Montand playing the victim of Signoret's huband's infidelity, some years after having cheated on her with Maryiln Monroe IRL

I didn't watch Room at the Top until I caught a shitty YouTube rip a decade ago. It’s got a modern rhythm, and in Laurence Harvey it’s got a modern performer. I tend to prefer her in snapping-turtle roles, not when asking for sympathy.

Love Room At The Top. It's like a conspiracy thriller except instead of world domination or anything like that all these obscure forces are just converging to keep Laurence Harvey from getting laid.