DON’T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN! / TOUCHE PAS À LA FEMME BLANCHE (1974)
Directed by Marco Ferreri
108 minutes
"The sensational notion of Ferreri's DON'T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN is to set an honest-to-God Western in the ruins of Les Halles, the wholesale food market, which Zola called 'the belly of Paris'…. Ferreri replaces that demolished culinary circus with all the ingredients needed for a grand-scale horse opera: the same male leads as LA GRANDE BOUFFE, and no less a white woman than Catherine Deneuve, plus all the open spaces and horses that a European Western freak could ask for. The result is slightly surreal, satirically aimed slapstick, with the Forces of American Imperialism battling the Combined Resources of the Third World. Marcello Mastroianni, as General Custer, slaps his gloves and stamps his boot in deference to Puritanism and a picture of Richard Nixon; Michel Piccoli, deftly lampooning an American accent as Buffalo Bill, recounts past exploits in a local bar; a host of 'Indians' – mainly Chileans, Colombians, Vietnamese, and Ugo Tognazzi – plot their strategies before the final massacre. But Ferreri's own strategy is to take off from this semi-allegory into a relaxed appreciation of sheer buffoonery, turning various locations (including Notre Dame) into facets of his private sandbox and appearing himself as an interested reporter." –Jonathan Rosenbaum [We regret to announce that we will not be able to screen DON'T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN on 35mm, as we hoped - the screening will instead be from a digital transfer. Apologies for any inconvenience!]