FS Rerun: Joanna

Guuz probably recalls when I posted this first, maybe three or four years ago. Gee, Joanna. I’m still in love with her.

She had the looks of a Francoise Hardy with sex: Canadian born actress Joanna Shimkus, who appeared in only two handful of movies (after those, Sidney Poitier married her right from the spot). Robert Enrico’s classic Les Aventuriers (1967) made her immortal: a melancholy ménage a trois with her torn between Delon and Lino Ventura, the finest romantic triangle movie of them all, miles above and lots more fun than Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. The soundtrack is by composer wizard Francois de Roubaix, kind of a French Morricone of the 60s who scored most gallic noir movies of the time, an artist of pure genius who drowned near Tenerife in 1975. Joanna’s probably only recorded song is a tune from Les Aventuriers, but not in the (strictly instrumental scored) movie  – a wonderfully laid-back campfire version, simply irresistible.

Joanna Shimkus – Les Aventuriers

As for her only recorded song, I was wrong. Loin is a tender sweeper from Robert Enrico’s movie Tante Zita, provided then by an FS friend, and in Ces mots stupides Joanna teamed up with Sacha Distel (!) for the French version of Something Stupid, immortalized by Nancy Sinatra and her blue-eyed daddy in September 1967.

Joanna Shimkus – Loin

Joanna Shimkus & Sacha Distel – Ces mots stupides