Carrefour (1938) - film review

A wealthy industrialist, Roger de Vétheuil, finds himself in court, charged with being an impostor.  Twenty years ago, whilst serving in WWI, he suffered a severe head wound which resulted in him losing his memory.  The prosecution claims that he is not who he pretends to be, but a former small-time crook who took the place of another soldier who was killed in the war.   Just when Roger’s case appears to be hopeless, an unexpected witness appears with firsthand testimony that clears his name.  Shortly after the trial, the mysterious witness, Lucien Sarrow, pays a private call on Roger and reveals that the evidence which he presented to the court is pure fabrication.  Unless Roger offers him a suitably generous remuneration for his pains, Lucien regrets that he must notify the authorities of his error and let justice take it course...

One of the more stylish and memorable examples of French film noir of the 1930s is this slick mystery-melodrama directed by Curtis Bernhardt, one of his more inspired films (on a par with his subsequent better Hollywood offerings).  Two things make this a particularly worthy example of its genre - superlative performances from the lead actors Charles Vanel and Jules Berry (arguably the two greatest French actors of their time) and Léonce-Henri Burel’s extraordinarily atmospheric cinematography, which presages American film noir at its most artistically inventive in virtually every shot.  Burel had previously nurtured his artistic flair on Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1927) and, towards the end of his long and distinguished career, would help Robert Bresson perfect his unique cinematic style with such films as Un condamné à mort s’est échappé (1956).   Whilst the subject matter hardly merits it, Burel’s work on Carrefour is among his finest, the crisp chiaroscuro composition perfectly matching the mood and subject of the film, allowing the tension to build to a truly gripping and lurid climax, assisted by some imaginative mise-en-scène and razor-sharp editing.

Charles Vanel and Jules Berry are perfectly matched as the hero and villain of the piece, although, in the best tradition of film noir melodrama, the boundaries between good and evil are more than a little blurred and we never quite know if Vanel is Berry’s moral superior or someone who is perhaps even more ruthless (Vanel is an anagram of venal...).  The ambiguity of the two characters is perhaps what makes the film so complex and fascinating.  By this stage in his career, Jules Berry had become virtually typecast as the smooth villian, a kind of Gallic George Sanders, but here he excels himself as Mr Nasty, oozing venality from every pore and underplaying the charm which, in many other roles, allowed him to get away with literally murder.   Vanel’s portrayal of a man who is uncertain of his own identity is arresting and poignant, particularly in the mellower sequence in which his character is confronted with the woman who might be his real mother.  At the heart of the film there is an intoxicating murkiness - we don’t really know who Berry’s character is, and the identity of Vanel’s character is a mystery that remains unresolved. Is De Vétheuil really the impostor he appears to be or simply an innocent man who is just dissatisfied with his life, to the extent that he has to believe he is someone else so that he can find meaning in his dull bourgeois existence? - we can never be sure which it is.  The plot, apparently based on real-life incidents, has an obvious resonance with the Martin Guerre legend, which was itself made into a film many years later, Le Retour de Martin Guerre (1982).  And we shouldn’t overlook Suzy Prim, who is excellent here as the tragically fated femme fatale, a part that fits her like a tight silk négligée.

Carrefour was the last of four films that Curtis Bernhardt made in France after fleeing Nazi German in the early 1930s.  The film was such a success that it resulted in its director immediately being offered seven-year contracts from two of the major Hollywood studios, MGM and Warner Brothers.  Bernhardt’s career in Hollywood was busy but not an unqualified success.  Whilst he turned out some notable films - My Reputation (1946), and Possessed (1947) - there were also a fair number of box office disappointments -  Conflict (1945), Devotion (1946) and Sirocco (1951).  Carrefour was itself remade as Dead Man’s Shoes (1938) in the UK and Crossroads (1942) by MGM in America, the latter directed by Jack Conway and starring William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and Basil Rathbone.  Carrefour’s legacy does not end there - the distinguished French crime writer Léo Malet (author of the famous Nestor Burma stories) was reputed to have been greatly influenced by this film.  That it also also had an impact on American film noir is pretty self-evident.

© James Travers 2011

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