STANLEY BAKER & CLAUDIA CARDINALE IN 'THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR'

Title: THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR Year: 1971 Rating: ***1.2

When PAPILLON author Henri Charrière shares a long passionate kiss with Italian bombshell Claudia Cardinale, you not only know why he wrote POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR aka THE 21 CARAT SNATCH, but why he cast himself in the part of an old rogue being kissed by the much-younger cult starlet...

He gets screwed as well, as in screwed-over by Cardinale playing the titular Popsy, who saunters into an extremely poor diamond-mining village in Venezuela: A uniquely ragged, dilapidated third-world location that's far more interesting than a rushed heist plot involving a helicopter vanishing with the diamonds and the girl...

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Who had also befriended British import Stanley Baker as a cop named Silva, so he's supposedly a local and on the side of the otherwise violent, torturing miners/revolutionaries, who make bandits in Spaghetti Western (which this is a cheaper jungle-set version of) seem wimpy by comparison...

But we're not here very long, cutting to the chase with Baker and Charrière traveling through more tropical areas to find Cardinale, who unfortunately connects with an annoying (and distracting) quirky dictator in what's more a visualized script treatment (sharing similarities to Charrière's obscure PAPILLON sequel BANCO) than a realized heist flick.

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP with Stanley Baker

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP with Henri Charrière

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP with Henri Charrière

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP with Henri Charrière

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP with Henri Charrière

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP

Jean Herman directs POPSY POP

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Villain Georges Aminel in POPSY POP with Henri Charrière

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP

Stanley Baker in POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Poster art from POPSY POP aka THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR

Claudia Cardinale in POPSY POP with Stanley Baker

Stanley Baker in THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR