Angelique: The Road to Versailles (1965)

Also known as ‘Marvelous Angelique’.

Director: Bernard Borderie

Starring: Michèle Mercier, Claude Giraud, Jean Rochefort

In the second of the Angélique series, the heroine joins a group of bandits, rescues her children, becomes a successful businesswoman, and once again becomes entangled in politics and matters of the heart.

Angelique returns! The saga continues with Angelique now deprived of her wealth and a refugee. She reunites with her first love Nicolas – now a gang leader and a very different character to the character we saw in the first film.

With too many characters coming and going and the film dragging, I didn’t find it as interesting as ‘Angelique’. I could hardly keep track of all the characters. Angelique then becomes a successful chocolatier. She is as witty as ever, which salvaged the film (for me) to a certain extent.

I missed Jeoffrey (Robert Hossein) and the love story was far too much like a daily soap opera. I didn’t really find any of the characters compelling – apart from Angelique, off course. The costumes and locations are once again stunning, though.

To be honest, ‘Angelique: The Road to Versailles (originally ‘Marveilleuse Angelique’) was rather forgettable. Compared to ‘Angelique’ selling 60 million box office tickets, ‘The Road to Versailles’ only sold 10.3 million tickets. I rest my case.

In French.

Would I watch it again? Maybe only to follow the series when watching it again from the beginning.