Young, Willing & Ye-Ye

Friend of the Family, based on a Parisian stage smash entitled Patate, tells of a nonentity whose nickname means "potato nose," or, more loosely, jerk. Thanks to his longtime enemy, a prominent financier, he has borne that unfortunate nom de pomme since childhood. He avenges himself at last when he learns that the banker is having an affair with his teen-age daughter.

Pierre Dux as father, Danielle Darrieux as mother, and Jean Marais as seducer make their roles a wistful tribute to the faded glories of boudoir farce. But Friend will be remembered, if at all, as the movie debut of France's 21-year-old rock-'n'-roll idol, Sylvie Vartan. Playing a ye-ye girl who won't say no, blonde Sylvie is a mildly accomplished comedienne with two oddly spaced front teeth that give her a look of elfin corruption. On the screen, despite a paltry script, she twists her diminutive curves into every parent's nightmare vision of a wayward, irresistible, aggressively precocious teen.

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