A recent watch with the House of Hammer team, Joseph Losey’s The Damned has set me off on a bit of a project, namely to watch every Losey film by the end of the year. A bit like my Fritz Lang odyssey of a few years ago, except this might be a little bit easier given that Losey’s filmography is shorter and all the films actually exist.

Unlike the Lang project I won’t be doing these in order. Thus far I’ve just been picking and choosing ones that happen to catch my eye. And this led me to 1962’s French-Italian co-production Eva (Eve, in the UK and – oh dear – The Devil’s Woman in the US).

Stanley Baker plays Tyvian Jones, a working-class Welsh writer living in Venice. As he explains, his first novel made him famous and the film adaptation made him rich. Well, perhaps they were different times for writers. Anyway, despite being engaged to the lovely-but-fragile Francesca (Virna Lisi) he becomes obsessed with high-class escort Eva (a deeply sexy Jeanne Moreau). Tyvian’s life unravels, in hopeless pursuit of Eva whilst being unable to find happiness with Francesca. It also transpires that he may not have been entirely honest about his background…

Further down the cast list we find Losey favourite James Villiers and his lovely voice. There’s a small role for Lisa Gastoni, and none other than Peggy Guggenheim has a cameo as a baccarat player in the casino. IMDB says Vittorio de Sica is there as well, but I couldn’t spot him.

Eva was co-scripted by Hugo Butler (blacklisted in Hollywood, like Losey himself) and his regular collaborator Evan Jones, who, unusually for the time, play up Baker’s Welshness. He even gets to sing Sospan Fach at one point. Baker was another favourite of Losey’s : if you wanted someone to play a tough cop, a working class hero or simply – as in this case – a major league asshole, there was no-one better at it than Stanley Baker. The boozy, self-destructive Welsh artist (this is only a decade after the death of Dylan Thomas) could easily have become a cliche and yet Baker makes it work; a seething toxic stew of machismo and self-pity. Moreau is cooler, controlled without ever wandering into “ice maiden” cliches, the intellectual to Baker’s force of nature.

Losey, filming in glorious black and white, makes 60s Venice look as beautiful as it ever has, including some memorable interior scenes at the Hotel Danieli and, unusually, on Torcello. Essential viewing for the Venetophile, then, but it’s also a wonderful film in its own right.

Highly recommended, then. It’s a film that will stay with you.