The Game Is Over

In Paris, Maxime Saccard visits his wealthy industrialist father Alexandre and his beautiful young Canadian wife, Renée. Alexandre fathered Maxime years ago in a prior marriage and Maxime has come to stay with them after studying in England.

Renée tells Maxime that she married Alexandre when she was pregnant following an unhappy love affair; the child was stillborn and the passion between the two has faded.

Renée and Maxime begin an affair and fall in love with each other. Renée, who came from a wealthy family, asks Alexandre for a divorce. He agrees, on the condition that she leaves the fortune she brought to their marriage invested in his business.

Renée accepts this and goes to Switzerland for a divorce. But while she is away, Alexandre confronts his son with two alternatives: he can either run off with the now penniless Renée or become engaged to Anne Sernet, the daughter of a wealthy banker whose support Alexandre wants for his business. Maxime agrees on the second course of action.

Renée returns from Switzerland to find Alexandre holding a ball celebrating Maxime's engagement to Anne. Renée throws herself into the pool to kill herself – but then changes her mind and dripping wet enters the party. Alexandre escorts her to the gymnasium, where she sits and stares into an empty future.

• Jane Fonda: Renée Saccard
• Peter McEnery: Maxime Saccard
• Michel Piccoli: Alexandre Saccard
• Tina Aumont: Anne Sernet
• Jacques Monod: M. Sernet
• Howard Vernon: Lawyer
• Douglas Read: Hotel manager
• Ham-Chau Luong: M. Chou
• Germaine Montero: Guest
• Joé Davray: The gardener (uncredited)
• Hélène Dieudonné : The maid (uncredited)
• Van Doude: Guest (uncredited)
• Simone Valère: Mme. Sernet (uncredited)
• Dominique Zardi: Guest (uncredited)

The movie was one of a series Vadim made based on a classic text. He described the book as "about high society in Paris with a rather serious background, since it likens dogs turning on a deer in a hunt to people."{{cite news|title=Vadim Is Frank On, Off Screen|author=Scheuer, Philip K|work=Los Angeles Times |date=20 July 1965|page=C8}}

"I am making no attempt to give the wide sociological picture that Zola did", added Vadim. "I am not a naturalist or a moralist. The Zola characters were hardly everyday. There was something fantastic about them, though they have their counterparts today, as I hope to show."{{cite news|title=And Vadim 'Created' Jane Fonda|author=Thomas Quinn Curtiss|work=New York Times |date=16 Jan 1966|page=X15}}

Vadim and Jane Fonda married immediately prior to making the film.{{cite news|title=Producer Weds Jane Fonda In Ceremony in Las Vegas|work=New York Times |date=15 Aug 1965|page=70}}

It was only the second film performance of Tina Aumont.{{cite news|title=Hollywood Family--2nd Generation|work=Los Angeles Times |date=15 Mar 1966|page=c10}}

The movie was shot in both English and French versions. Fonda acted in French and English. "I said it was hard enough to shoot anything once", she said. "But doing it twice, I found, seemed perfectly natural.

"I love working in French", she added. "I feel a certain kind of freedom. The way you feel when you learn to speak a foreign language and find you can say things you wouldn't dare say in English."{{cite news|title=Here's What Happened to Baby Jane|author=Gerals Jonas|work=New York Times |date=22 Jan 1967|page=91}}

Peter McEnery did not speak French so when shooting the French version he had to learn his lines phonetically and a French actor was then dubbed in for him.{{cite news|title=It's the doing she likes: Suggestion of reality|author=Kimmis Hendrick|work=The Christian Science Monitor|location=Boston, Mass|date=17 Feb 1967|page=4}}

Fonda appears in some nude scenes which were explicit for the time. She said later about shooting these:

You have to be relaxed, free. Pornography begins when things become self-conscious. But the set was cleared and closed, and I knew Vadim would protect me in the cutting room. Months later we discovered that a photographer had hidden in the rafters and taken pictures which he sold to Playboy. It rocked me, it really did. It's a simple matter of breaking and entering, and invasion of privacy.

The movie was a solid box office success in France, where it received mostly good reviews. It was the tenth most popular movie at the French box office in 1966.{{cite web|url=http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boxofficestory.com%2Fbox-office-alain-delon-c22669761%2F20&sandbox=1|title=French Box Office 1966|website=Box Office Story}}

When the film screened at the Venice Film Festival, however, critical reception was hostile.{{cite news|title=A Ball in Venice Competes With Films for Excitement|work=New York Times |date=9 Sep 1966|page=41}}

When the movie was screened commercially in Italy later, all copies were seized on the grounds of obscenity. The Italian producer and 23 cinema owners were charged.{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article106957354 |title=Trouble for Jane Fonda with Italian censors. |newspaper=The Canberra Times |date=17 January 1967 |accessdate=3 January 2015 |page=12 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |title=Jane Fonda Film Seized in Italy|work=New York Times |date=22 Nov 1966|page=33}}{{cite news|title=Producer Indicted in Italy For 'Obscene' Vadim Film|work=New York Times |date=20 Dec 1966|page=58}} Vadim and Fonda were not charged.{{cite news|title=Roger Vadim, Jane Fonda Face Obscenity Charge|work=Chicago Tribune |date=26 Apr 1967|page=b5}}

The Game Is Over received mostly negative reviews in the US. Critics praised the cinematography by Claude Renoir, but called the film's story and dialogue trite. The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther wrote that the film "has absolutely nothing in it but fancy clothes and decor", while critic Roger Ebert called it "a tedious and ridiculous film of great physical beauty".{{cite news|title=The Game Is Over Movie Review |url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-game-is-over-1967 |first=Roger |last=Ebert |date=April 14, 1967}} The Washington Post called it "this deliciously false and phony picture".{{cite news|title=Jane's Back; So is Sandra|author=Richard L. Coe|work=The Washington Post and Times-Herald|date=8 April 1967|page=B7}}

However the Los Angeles Times called it Vadim's "best film since Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the finest of Miss Fonda's career... Rarely has Vadim's style been so expressive."{{cite news|title='Game Is Over' and Vadim a Winner|author=Thomas, Kevin|work=Los Angeles Times |date=20 Jan 1967|page=c6}}

The English speaking version was released on VHS by Video Treasures and Media Home Entertainment in the late 1980s.{{Cite web |title=The Game is Over {{!}} VHSCollector.com |url=https://vhscollector.com/movie/game-over |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=vhscollector.com}} Both issues have long been out of print, thus copies are very scarce with prices reflecting this accordingly.{{Cite web |title=VHS ~ Roger Vadim THE GAME IS OVER Jane Fonda ~ La curee ~ box has tape ~ Media |url=https://www.ebay.com/itm/375720051241 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=eBay |language=en-us}}{{Cite web |title=Rare The Game is Over New Sealed VHS Tape Cassette Roger Vadim Jane Fonda 1966 |url=https://www.ebay.com/itm/256722174483 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=eBay |language=en-us}}{{Cite web |title=Rare The Game is Over Sealed VHS Roger Vadim Jane Fonda Rated R 1988 |url=https://www.ebay.com/itm/186935502949 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=eBay |language=en-us}}{{Cite web |title=The Game is Over - Copyright 1966 Roger Vadim Jane Fonda (VHS 1987) 13132906409 |url=https://www.ebay.com/itm/135598686574 |access-date=2025-03-27 |website=eBay |language=en-us}} As of 2024, The Game Is Over has yet to be officially released on DVD.

La Curée, the somewhat shorter French-language cut, came out on DVD in 2003, though its jacket cover misleadingly displays the title applicable to the English version.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/The-Game-Is-Over-DVD/295654/ |title=The Game Is Over DVD (La Curée) |access-date=2025-03-27 |via=www.blu-ray.com}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb title|id=0060271}}
• [https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/75941/the-game-is-over The Game is Over] at TCMDB

{{Les Rougon-Macquart}}

{{Roger Vadim}}

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Category:1966 films

Category:French drama films

Category:Films based on works by Émile Zola

Category:Films directed by Roger Vadim

Category:Films set in Paris

Category:English-language French films

Category:1960s French films