Roughly half a century ago, Western societies possessed a markedly more relaxed attitude towards sexuality than they do today. The intervening decades have seen a cultural pendulum swing back towards a censorious, risk-averse puritanism, making the libertine spirit of the 1970s feel like a distant, almost alien, epoch. This shift in mores is perhaps the most crucial lens through which to view Madame Claude (1977), a film by Just Jaeckin. It is a film that takes the raw material of what, in our own time, would be the equivalent of the Epstein affair and fashions it into a piece of light, escapist entertainment. The very existence of such a film, one that treats its sordid subject matter with a cocktail of glamour, cynicism, and dark humour, serves as a fascinating artefact of a bygone era’s cultural confidence.
The title refers to the nom de guerre of Fernande Grudet (1923–2015), the formidable woman who ran an elite escort service in 1960s and 1970s Paris. Her client list read like a Who’s Who of global power: statesmen such as John F. Kennedy and Muammar Gaddafi, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando. Like many who operated in such grey areas, Grudet ensured official protection by providing intelligence to the police and, more critically, to the country’s security services. This arrangement collapsed following the 1974 election of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, whose administration initiated tax evasion proceedings against her. In a bid to win public sympathy, Grudet leveraged her extensive network of celebrity friends, including Jacques Quieroz, the brother of the famous writer Françoise Sagan. The film is loosely based on Quieroz’s 1975 book, which served as Grudet’s semi-authorised biography.
The screenplay by André-Georges Brunelin, however, cleverly expands this story onto a much larger canvas by weaving it into the Lockheed Affair, the infamous bribery scandal that rocked numerous Western governments and the US military-industrial complex. The audience is introduced to this high-stakes world through Howard (Robert Webber), a senior US official who uses Madame Claude’s services. He becomes alarmed that many of the figures implicated in the scandal were also clients, making them potential targets for blackmail. This fear is well-founded, as David Evans (Murray Head), a photographer romantically involved with one of Claude’s girls, Anne-Marie (Vibeke Knudsen), has amassed a collection of compromising photographs and other “saucy” material. This makes him a target for a host of factions, including the CIA, the Parisian underworld, and the French police and intelligence services. Amidst this chaos, Madame Claude desperately tries to preserve her operation while simultaneously showing the ropes to Elisabeth (Dayle Haddon), a young woman who has become one of her latest recruits.
Just three years prior, Jaeckin had directed Emmanuelle (1974), a film that, riding the wave of the Sexual Revolution, redefined the standards of erotica in world cinema and spawned an iconic and immensely popular series. He had thus become a specialist in films that mixed what many at the time called “soft pornography” with high production values, prestigious literary sources, or casts that lent the films a certain artistic legitimacy. With its subject matter, Madame Claude seemed like the ideal vehicle for his talents.
Yet, while the film does feature plenty of nudity and erotic scenes, including a full-fledged chateau orgy near the end, and while the Quebecois actress Dayle Haddon does bear a striking resemblance to Jaeckin’s muse, Sylvia Kristel, this content serves more as a spice than the main course. The film is, in essence, a combination of semi-satirical dark comedy about a corrupt government and a very serious, and ultimately rather dark, spy thriller. It is far more akin to the paranoid conspiracy of The Parallax View than the soft-focus eroticism of Emmanuelle.
This is not to say that Madame Claude is a bad film. Jaeckin is a talented director, and he commands a spirited and capable cast. Françoise Fabian, who actually met with Grudet to study her character, is remarkably efficient in her role. She wisely avoids the trap of presenting Madame Claude as a feminist hero—as some at the time attempted to do—and instead plays her as a stone-cold businesswoman who must suppress her emotions to survive in a dark world. Murray Head, who would later achieve fame for the song “One Night in Bangkok,” successfully transforms his character from an exploitative scumbag into a tragic victim. Klaus Kinski also shines in a small but memorable role as a Greek tycoon modelled on Aristotle Onassis. The legendary Serge Gainsbourg provides the film’s evocative soundtrack.
There is also plenty for cinephiles to enjoy in the period detail. The Concorde supersonic passenger jet is featured as a monument to a bygone age of technological optimism, and a very detailed and frank geopolitical analysis in a discussion between Howard and his subordinates offers a level of cynical realism rarely heard in films today.
What the film lacks is script coherence. Elisabeth’s storyline feels artificially connected to the main spy and blackmail plot, serving more as a narrative device than an organic part of the story. The ending is both melodramatic and abrupt, concluding in an open-ended and somewhat dark manner that is in line with the cynical post-Watergate thrillers of the time.
Madame Claude was successful enough to spawn a sequel, Madame Claude 2 (1981), in which the main role was played by Alexandra Stewart. More recently, in 2021, Netflix aired a biopic that was apparently more in line with real events, starring Karole Rocher in the title role.
In the end, Madame Claude should be assessed as film of its time, a fascinating and flawed artefact. Despite its many flaws, it can be recommended as a sort of “guilty pleasure” for fans of 1970s erotica. More than that, however, it offers a fascinating insight into a world half a century ago—a world where the line between statecraft, celebrity, and sin was not only blurred but often non-existent, and where such a world could be served up as light entertainment for a public that was not yet ready to be outraged.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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