The film uses dialogue-free flashbacks when the main characters talk about their lives.[3]
Plot
The Valet enters a hotel room with Joseph Garcin in tow. The windowless room has a single entrance and no mirrors. Two women, Inès Serrano and Estelle Rigault, are then led in. Afterwards, the Valet leaves and locks the door. Realizing that they are in hell, the trio expects to be tortured; no torturer is forthcoming. While waiting, they strike up a conversation and discuss each other's sins, desires, and unpleasant memories. They slowly realize that such probing is the form of torture they are meant to receive.
It later becomes apparent that Joseph, once a journalist, was executed for cowardice and the betrayal of the French Resistance. Estelle, who has a voracious sexual appetite, was a gold digger and seductress who killed a man. Meanwhile, the lesbian Inès abused her partner's love for her and eventually killed them both in a murder-suicide. As the story progresses, Garcin becomes increasingly annoyed by Inès' considering him a coward, while Estelle makes unreciprocated advances on him; Inès is tempted by Estelle, but crazed by Estelle's heterosexuality.
The three at first continue to see events happening on Earth but as the living move on, they are left with only their own thoughts and the company of the other two. Towards the end of the film, Garcin demands he be let out. In response, the door opens; none leave, resigning themselves to their fate.
Sartre did not know about the film while it was in production.[4] Viveca Lindfors was at the time married to screenwriter George Tabori.[5]
Release
No Exit received its American release on December 5.[citation needed]
Reception
Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, found the film "antiseptic", with emotionless acting and stagy directing; he summarized that the film "prove[d] that "No Exit" is inappropriate material for a full-length [film]".[3]
Variety wrote: "Based on a J. P. Sartre play which probes the tortured minds of three people destined to be together for eternity in hell, the pic is sincerely made though its transference to the screen medium is by no means successful. Name value of the stars and author will be an exploitation aid, but it looks only a fair arty theatre film. ... Tad Danielewski's direction does not attempt to conceal the legit origins of the piece, and it is largely a static play on film. The flashbacks provide some opportunity of action, but basically it is confined to the one room, and there's not much that can be done about it."[6]
Alison Darren in the Lesbian Film Guide calls the film an "excellent psychological drama" with a "surprisingly overt" depiction of lesbianism, and notes that Inès is a "typical screen lesbian" of the early 1960s, both physically attractive and inherently evil.[7]
Contat, Michel; Rybalka, Michel (1974). The Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. ISBN978-0-8101-0439-6.
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