ChiO covers the Robert Hossein marathon, and the very eclectic "day four" that covered French noir's "Biarritz/film maudit" connection...

THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 3--Jour et Nuit 3 (Saturday, Nov. 5)

As is likely for most people, my introduction to Robert Hossein was through RIFIFI (Jules Dassin 1955). That was years ago, and he made no particular impression. Then Don reintroduced me to him at the first “The French Had a Name for It” with TOI LE VENIN aka BLONDE IN A WHITE CAR (Robert Hossein 1958) and CHAIR DE POULE aka HIGHWAY PICKUP (Julien Duvivier 1964). I was hooked. A year later at “The French Had a Name for It 2” came LES SALUDS VONT EN ENFER aka THE WICKED GO TO HELL (Robert Hossein 1955). Yesterday, from 1:30pm to 11:15pm, a packed house at the Roxie saw five films starring Hossein, four of which he also directed, and none of which I had seen. I am now beyond hooked.

LA MORT D’UN TUEUR aka DEATH OF A KILLER (Robert Hossein 1964) is part Spaghetti Western and part Greek Tragedy in a contemporary urban setting, shot in a stunningly modern style. There is a heist, but that is only the catalyst for revenge…revenge that may or may not be warranted. Pierre (Hossein) returns home after years in prison for being part of a heist. He and two partners are certain that another partner, Luciano (Simon Andreau), ratted him out. They hunt for him with murder as the goal. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Luciano had been Pierre’s best friend until Luciano started showing greater interest in Pierre’s sister, Maria (Marie-France Pisier). Luciano and Maria started living together the moment Pierre went to prison. There is more than a sense of suppressed incestuous or, perhaps, homosexual desire spinning out of control in Pierre’s psyche. When Luciano is found, the lords of the local Underworld hold a trial in which Pierre makes his case for Luciano having squealed. Luciano states his defense, part of which is that this is not about the heist, but about Maria. Verdict: a showdown. One man is dead, and the police go after the survivor…with the aid of Maria. Hossein: Modern, hardboiled antihero.

LE VAMPIRE DE DUSSELDORF aka THE SECRET KILLER (Robert Hossein 1965) is based on the same historical incident as M (Fritz Lang 1931) and M (Joseph Losey 1951), and although it shares its time and place with Lang’s rendering, it varies from the others in several ways The killer, Peter Kuerten (Hossein), appears to have a life outside of being a murderer. His victims are young women (there is a marvelous moment early where he nonchalantly uses a young girl as the means to gain access to a building, thereby playing on the audience’s M-induced expectations), with one exception (Anna’s sugar daddy). He is obsessed with and falls in love with a cabaret performer, Anna (Marie-France Pisier--Hossein is no fool). The police are stumped and make errors, but there is no underclass that unites to track down and judge the killer. The political references (ascendant Nazis and Capital vs. Labor) are overt. No blame (Lang--psychological problem that needs understanding by society; Losey--societal structure) is assigned: Kuerten is a man with an inexplicable compulsion to kill. In short, it is its own movie in spite of Lang’s and Losey’s preceding works. Hossein: Secret Monster.

Subject for further research, or some knowledgeable person can just tell Dan Hodges and me: Did all Weimar Republic cabaret stars look alike (with the exception of the miraculous Marlene), or did Bob Fosse see this before making CABARET? Anna’s introduction has her in a black bustier and fishnet stockings, a black Louise Brooks bob, holding a short whip, sitting on a chair backwards. How does Sally Bowles appear in “Goodbye to Berlin,” “I Am a Camera,” and the original stage version of “Cabaret” (1966)? Plus, there is a scene in Anna’s dressing room where she is using an eyebrow pencil and powder to transform (humiliate?) Kuerten and the result is a shocking resemblance to Joel Grey. Inquiring minds need to know.

DES FEMMES DISPARAISSENT aka THE ROAD TO SHAME (Edouard Molinaro 1959) is, for the first hour or so, a modern take on ‘40s-‘50s Exploitation movies (including the ubiquitous “Don’t Let This Happen To You!” intro), and ends as a prescient take on ‘60s Gangster movies with never-ending rapid firing shooting. This 1959 film is right at the intersection.

Pierre (Hossein) lets his jealousy get the better of him by following his fiancée, Beatrice (Estella Blain), when she goes out to meet some other young, beautiful women for a night of dancing. After the women leave their meeting place, he goes in to find that it’s a dress shop operated by kindly and maternal Mme. Cassini (Jane Marken) who has outfitted the women with new party dresses. He leaves and is promptly beaten to a pulp by two goons. This sets into motion a series of fights, near-death experiences, police surveillance, captures, escapes, re-captures, make-out scenes, sadism and murder leading to the discovery of a white slavery racket. Thrills galore...all in one action-packed night! The added bonus is one of the most terrifying goons this side of Neville Brand. Hossein: Action Hero.

LES SCELERATS aka THE WRETCHES (Robert Hossein 1960) is unlike any of the foregoing movies, for better or worse. Thelma (Michele Morgan) and Jess (Hossein) are a wealthy married American couple. Across the street is a poor older married couple with a sweet and charming daughter, Louise (Perrette Pradier), who is anxious to leave. Peering through the window, she, the nice girl-next-door voyeur, pines for that other life. Jess hires her to be their live-in maid. So, yes, Thelma and Louise now live together. Jess is in despair due to Thelma. Thelma drinks…and drinks…and drinks. Louise can save Jess by failing in love with him. And everyone can talk…and talk…and talk. [Confession: After watching three subtitled movies, reading subtitles for a dialogue laden fourth can be tiring.] The problem can be resolved, but not everyone will survive and nobody will be happy. Hossein: Desperate New Wave idle rich.

LE JEU DE LA VERITE aka THE GAME OF TRUTH (Robert Hossein 1961). What if Agatha Christie wrote a screenplay and Luis Bunuel directed it? Voila! Even though neither was involved in this instance. A group of wealthy people--husbands and wives, a brother and sister, an older man and his young female companion du jour--gather in a mansion’s drawing room for a party at which no joy is to be had. It’s boring until the Game of Truth (a variation on Truth or Dare, but there is no Dare) is played. The Truth hurts everyone except that older man, who everyone else hates anyway, and who happens to have an envelope with information on one unnamed person in the room. The lights inexplicable go out. When the lights come on, they discover that the older man has been shot in the back of his head. The envelope is gone. Who killed him, who has the envelope, and what does it disclose about whom? Hossein then comes into the room as a police inspector. Or, as the killer. At any rate, he is not quite believed despite a pummeling.

Although I am not generally a fan of stage-bound movies or drawing room mysteries, I did find this engaging. The critique of Truth and the upper class, combined with a fine film noir cast, including Paul Meurisse, Jean Servais, and Jean-Louis Trintignant, and a camera that makes the single room more than a stage turned the tide. Hossein: Reluctant Truth-teller.

If one asked ten people who watched all five movies which one was the favorite, my guess is that each film would receive at least one vote. Mine would go to LA MORT D’UN TUEUR aka DEATH OF A KILLER, but I always wonder if that would change if the films in a binge-watch were viewed in a different order. These Hossein films warrant that experiment.

From 2016: THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 3 (Day & Night 4)

In my article about French noir at BRIGHT LIGHTS, two of the films shown on this day--LEVIATHAN and NON COUPABLE, two very different "provincial gothic" noirs that are both inextricably interwined with a special, bred-in-the0-bone type of madness--were offered as part of a group of eight added to a list of landmark French noirs originally compiled by Ginette Vincendeau. One of the others from earlier in the festival--VOYAGE SANS ESPOIR--also made the list. Vincendeau had included LE JOUR SE LEVE and LE DERNIER TOURNANT in her original list of twelve, and they were two of the eight from her list that I retained.

And, upcoming on Night 5, LES JEUX SONT FAITS will become the sixth film from this show to wind up on the "landmark" list. That makes FRENCH 3 into quite a landmark unto itself, and the passage of four years hasn't dimmed its power.

If you've not read my Bright Lights essay about French noir, here is the link:

https://brightlightsfilm.com/the-big-sigh-exploring-the-lost-continent-of-classic-french-film-noir-1932-1966

Back to ChiO...

THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 3--Jour et Nuit 4 (Nov. 6)

The previous dispatches failed to note how gorgeous the DCP screenings are and, for that, Don must shoulder the blame. The high quality of the prints at this and his previous festivals has turned into an expectation. There is a romanticism connected to 35mm that I understand, but when the choice is between a beautiful DCP version of an otherwise unavailable film and not seeing the film, the decision is obvious.

There are movies that, even though the narrative is complex and I sometimes struggle to connect the dots and pivotal characters, some of whom seldom appear on screen, still engage me so that I both enjoy it and want to see it again. LA DENONCIATION aka THE DENUNCIATION (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze 1962) is one of those. A man literally stumbles upon a dead man and is thrown into a maelstrom of unknown dangers. Every encounter he has with the police investigating the murder and in his independent attempt to solve the mystery--who was murdered, who murdered him and why--is an echo of the first flashback: he survived torture and likely execution by the Nazis when he provided information, information that he is subsequently told was unnecessary because the Nazis already had it, but they wanted to extract it “based on principle.” Film noir existential guilt--one does a horrible thing that makes no difference in day-to-day reality, but which was still a horrible thing. And everyone in the movie, in some way, is complicit. Definitely a film I want and need to return to.

Amour fou. Amour fou. Vive amour fou. LEVIATHAN aka DARK JOURNEY (Leonard Keigel 1962). Louis Jourdan as I have never seen him. Quiet and meek Paul (Jourdan) and his wife are new arrivals in a provincial town where he is trying to earn a little money as a tutor. Their marriage is even duller and drabber than than he is. He keeps what little hope he has alive with his obsession with Angele (Marie Laforet), a beautiful young laundress who he repeatedly stares at through windows and follows to her boarding house, which doubles as a restaurant. When they occasionally speak and he asks to spend a bit of time with her, she alternately rejects and accepts him.

Seeing how sullen Paul looks, Mr. Grosgeorges, the father of the child who Paul tutors, suggests that he find a woman with whom he can have an affair. That is, after all, what he has done to find some joy outside of his loveless marriage. In fact, he has a beautiful 18-year to suggest. The cold and sadistic Mrs. Grosgeorges (Lili Palmer) overhears the discussion. She informs Paul that the 18-year old is Angele, the town prostitute. The boardinghouse is a brothel and the men at the restaurant are just some of Angele’s clients. Mrs. Grosgeorges sees herself as an acceptable alternative for Paul. The madness of everyone begins. Violence, physical and psychological, results. Forgiveness is available. Death, however, is the only way out.

The cinematography is appropriately in sweeping shades of gray by Nicolas Hayer (LE CORBEAU Henri-Georges Clouzot 1943); ORPHEE (Jean Cocteau 1950); LE DOULOS (Jean Pierre Melville 1963)). For those at home, the ideal Louis Jourdan home double-feature: LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN (Max Ophuls 1948) and LEVIATHAN, if a copy of the latter can be found.

NON COUPABLE aka NOT GUILTY (Henri Decoin 1947) shall hereby serve as Exhibit A that the perfect crime can be committed...but it doesn’t matter. The kindly formerly respectable town doctor, Michel Ancelin (Michel Simon), is still a doctor, but also the town drunk who lives with Madeleine (Jany Holt) without benefit of marriage. The town views him as a pitiable character. Madeleine drags him out of a tavern late on a rainy night and he staggers to get behind the wheel of his car. At a treacherous bend in a country road, he hits and kills a motorcyclist. Knowing that this could be the end of what career he has left, he becomes lucid and logical. He tosses the body over a stone wall at the side of the road and positions the motorcycle so it appears that it hit the wall. Police recognize it for what it clearly is--the accidental death of a man who had just stolen the motorcycle and wasn’t familiar with the rain slick road. Case closed.

Except now Ancelin is emboldened. Any problem he may have can be resolved by murder. He has the intellect and skill to cover up any clues that may point to him and to have them point to another. That is especially helpful when he discovers that the expensive gifts that Madeleine is constantly losing are being pawned and the proceeds are shared with her paramour. Commission of the murders and befuddling the police and the reporter are sources of pride. Ancelin is not to be pitied!

But he is still pitied. What good is pride in a job well done if nobody knows you have done the job? He must confess. But no one believes the pitiable kindly drunkard. And in the final irony, perhaps the fall goeth before pride.

Jacque Lemare’s (LA REGLE DU JEU aka THE RULES OF THE GAME (Jean Renoir 1939)) cinematography smoothly transitions from day to night, reflecting the lightness and darkness of Ancelin’s soul. The performances throughout are strong, but Michel Simon, once again, captures the screen. He is not to be pitied.

U.S. film noir has a streak of misogyny running through it. Not to be outdone, MANEGES aka THE WANTON (Yves Allegret 1950) must be in contention for the most misogynistic film noir regardless of national origin. The premise and its set-up are simple. So simple that one is tempted to think upon hearing it that it can’t possibly be engaging.

A woman is in a hospital bed near death. Her plain, non-descript, loving husband and her loving mother are at bedside. The mother tells him the truth. In a series of flashbacks it is revealed that he has done everything possible, including driving his business into the ground, to make his wife and her mother happy and financially secure. Through it all they have laughed behind his back, stashed away cash, and searched for a more attractive, more virile, and wealthier future husband to care for their needs. As the husband listens to the story unfold, he goes from sobbing “My Dora…my Dora….” to “b*tch! b*tch!”

This film wouldn’t work if it did not have three strong lead actors drawing in the viewer. This has three of the strongest--Bernard Blier as the husband, Simone Signoret as the wife, and Jane Marken as the harridan mother-in-law. Perfect casting. And an ideal ending to the penultimate night of film noir at its most tragic.