The Devil's Pleasure Garden

You Need Money to Be Rich

A romantic thriller about stealing with style
Reg’d © Library of Congress

She's tough; he's refined.

She's practical; he's cultured.

She's brilliant; he's elegant.

She's serious; he's frivolous.

She's a lawyer; he's a crook.

She never loses; neither does he.

Daring British barrister Francesca Smithson is the darling of the press for her courtroom tactics.

She is appointed to defend American CFO Hugo Danch at hearings to extradite him to New York for absconding with a fortune from his crashing company Engone.

Proposed cast: Tim Robbins (Hugo)

She'd rather not. Hugo isn't all that savory—and she's in a rut, not only with her job but with her fiancé, Jason.

Proposed cast: Dominic Cooper (Jason)

But at the hotel there's a mix-up—she's sent to the suite of Romeo Balue, a light-hearted French charmer and art thief who mistakes her for the call girl he'd ordered—

Proposed cast: Vincent Cassel (Romeo)

—and, what is it, her spirit of fun? she is a little bored—she plays along!

Proposed cast: Anna Friel (Francesca)

Soon she's leading a double life—by night Romeo's bird of paradise, by day the defender of a man with a briefcase full of bearer bonds.

To avoid arrest Hugo allows her to take charge of the bonds—but then Romeo disappears with them, and with a truck full of paintings, leaves her on the hook with some murderous people...and the game heats up.

Set in London—

—and Lake Como:

This:

+ this:

= this:

Pretentious Pictures presents a comic and romantic thriller.

Reg’d © Library of Congress

Pretentious Pictures Presents:

Love without kissing

A Hollywood mystery

When aspiring actress Dolores Davenport's face is destroyed in an accident, there's nothing the doctors can do. Plastic surgery has its limits. A face transplant would take years, and cost more than she can come up with.

So she goes veiled, and earns her keep by posing for lesbian painter Virgy, who's in love with her.

Proposed: Sharon Stone

Dolores doesn't return Virgy's love, only her friendship, and while she poses, she works on a screenplay. If she can't make it as a star, she'll make it as a writer. But how can she sell a script when she can’t even show her face?

At an exhibition of Virgy's paintings, Dolores meets French movie star Louis Bertrand, who's been collecting Virgy's pictures of Dolores, and, already in love with those—

—falls in love with her.

Proposed: Christoph Waltz

Here is someone who can open doors for her, and he does, but his passion, his obsession, is to see behind her veil. That, she tells him, he will never do. She won't even sleep with him. But he doesn't give up. He arranges an interview for her with cold ruthless studio producer Perry Zabrowski.

Proposed: John Malkovich

She pitches Perry an idea based on his private life, which Louis has filled her in on, and Perry buys it, and wants to shape it, but only if they attach a star—Louis.

Impossible. But when she pitches it to Louis he agrees! "You’re going to make this movie?" "Of course I am! And do you know why? Because if you do not sleep with me this instant I won’t do it! Et voila!" She refuses. He shrugs. She relents, but he must never touch her veil. If he does that, they're through. It's love without kissing.

She is now a writer-producer. But Perry won't proceed unless his wife Suzanne has a role. Suzanne is not a star, and Louis says no: his reputation won't stand it, and besides, Suzanne is one of his many ex-lovers, perhaps the most delicious of them. He doesn't want to go there again.

The deal is off, and Dolores spurns Louis until his passion gets the better of him and he relents. But neurotic Suzanne can't work with the director Perry assigns; she'll only work with Dolores. So Dolores directs.

They're shooting on a yacht in Marina del Rey, and Perry comes aboard to check on his wife, and to have Dolores. The five of them spend the night there—Virgy is co-writer—and Dolores wakes up in a red bed: Perry's throat has been cut. It matters very much to her who did this, but her friends aren't talking, in fact no one seems to mind, and it's the last day of the schedule so they should really get these shots before the police come in and delay them interminably, shouldn't they?

Because of a gap in the cast Dolores takes the role of a pirate pleading for her life, and at the moment of truth rips off her mask—she won't show her face to Louis, but she'll show it to the world if her film needs it. Not being a stunt man, Louis blows up the wrong boat, and Perry's corpse along with it, so the murderer is off the hook. Oscars. Louis takes Dolores back to France, but she still won't show him her face.