Exactly what Jean Renoir had in mind when he wrote, performed in and directed "The Rules of the Game" … is anybody's guess. This is the same M. Renoir, if you please, who gave us those notable imports, "Grand Illusion" and "The Human Beast," not to mention "The Southerner," from Hollywood. The new arrival, however, is really one for the buzzards.

Here we have a baffling mixture of stale sophistication, coy symbolism and galloping slapstick that almost defies analysis. The distributors claim that the picture, made shortly before the war, was banned by the Occupation on grounds of immorality. Rest assured it wasn't immortality. And there's nothing particularly sizzling in this account of some addle-headed lounge lizards tangling up their amours on a week-end house party in the country.

One minute they're making sleek Noel Coward talk about art and free love, the next they're behaving like a Li'l...