Judex (1963) - film review

The banker Favraux has made his fortune by preying on others far less scrupulous than he.  One day, he receives a letter from someone named Judex threatening him with death unless he returns his ill-gotten gains to those from whom he stole them.  Favraux scorns these threats but soon pays the price.  At a masked ball to celebrate his daughter Jacqueline’s engagement he suddenly drops dead... or so it would seem.  In truth, Favraux is merely drugged and when he regains consciousness he finds he is Judex’s prisoner.   When Jacqueline decides to give up her inheritance, Judex has a change of heart, and decides to keep Favraux alive in a cell rather than kill him.  Meanwhile, Diana Monti, Favraux’s former governess, returns to his château in search of compromising documents that will make her a rich and powerful woman.  When she discovers that Favraux is still alive, Diana contrives a plan to free him so that she can marry him and steal his fortune...

French cinema of the mid-1960s saw something of a revival of interest in the old Louis Feuillade thriller serials of the 1910s.   Feuillade’s criminal mastermind Fantômas came back for a second round of murderous mayhem, and a certain amount of mirth, in a series of three films directed by André Hunebelle and starring Jean Marais and Louis de Funès, beginning with Fantômas (1964).  The previous year had seen the release of another remake of a Feuillade classic, Judex, directed by Georges Franju.  It would take another three decades before Irma Vep, the villainous queen of crime from Les Vampires (1914) would return to the big screen, played by Maggie Cheung in Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep (1996) – although this hardly counts as a remake.  

Georges Franju’s fascination and love of the silent Feuillade thrillers is evident from this inspired, and ever so slightly camp, reinterpretation of Judex.  The film is an obvious fan homage to Feuillade’s work – employing the episodic structure to almost ludicrous extremes whilst evoking the dark menace and poetry of Feuillade’s films through its stylish expressionistic design and lush black and white photography.  Feuillade’s grandson Jacques Champreux worked on the screenplay, which has many of the elements of the original 1916 Judex film, but curiously omits the justification for why Judex behaves as he does, and so the central character becomes an avenger without a cause.  

Channing Pollock is a surprising yet effective casting choice for the role of Judex.  He had previously appeared in just three films and, with his stunning good looks, was being promoted as the next Rudolph Valentino of Italian cinema.  He was much better known as an illusionist and magic would be his metier for most of his career – Judex was to be his last screen credit.  What Pollock may lack in experience as an actor, he makes up for with charm and charisma, and the film certainly makes good use of his real talent, as a conjuror.   The svelte Francine Bergé revels in the part of the deadly female villain Diana Monti, the role that Musidora made her own in the original Feuillade serial.  Interestingly, Brigitte Bardot was briefly considered for this part...

The 1963 remake of Judex is regarded more highly today than when it was first released, partly because Franju’s reputation as a filmmaker has risen substantially in recent years.  It is true that Franju’s Judex is stylistically very different to that of Feuillade.  Whereas Feuillade sought to achieve a synthesis of fantasy and realism, Franju is clearly more preoccupied with the fantasy side of the equation.  In common with many of his films of this period – Les Yeux sans visage (1960) being another good example – Judex has the character of a Daliesque dream, with ill-defined characters shifting in and out of focus in a plot that is fantastic and barely coherent, but with stark, almost surreal images that make a strong impression on the spectator.   The film may lack the pace, darkness and narrative solidity of Feuillade’s film, but it makes up for this, at least in part, with its inspired visuals, which owe as much to Jean Cocteau as they do to Louis Feuillade.

© James Travers 2008

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