L’Aîné des Ferchaux (1963) - film review

After a series of match defeats, a young boxer named Michel Maudet is sacked by his manager and is forced to look for alternative employment to make ends meet.  He is engaged as a secretary to a wealthy banker, Dieudonné Ferchaux, not realising that the latter has become implicated in a high-profile fraud and must flee the country to escape prosecution.  Arriving in New York, Ferchaux manages to lay his hands on his ill-gotten gains and heads south with Michel, hoping to live in quiet obscurity and avoid extradition to France.  Very soon, Michel grows tired of doing nothing but catering to the whims of his sour-tempered employer.  How easy it would be to put him out of the way and abscond with his money...

Between Le Doulos (1962) and Le Deuxième souffle (1966), two seminal French policiers, director Jean-Pierre Melville stepped outside the gangster milieu for which he had a particular penchant to make this suitably gloomy adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel.  L’Aîné des Ferchaux is one of the few films made by Melville which do not fit into the two categories that predominate in his oeuvre - gangster films and dramas about the Nazi Occupation of France, although it bears his unmistakable imprint and is possibly the film which most loudly shrieks his bulimic preoccupation with American culture.  Notionally a film noir, this could equally be classified as a road movie or buddy movie, its recognisable American locations, use of American actors and numerous references to Frank Sinatra giving it a distinctly American flavour.  Whereas Melville’s gangster films constitute a respectful homage to American cinema, L’Aîné des Ferchaux seems to be a more personal statement of devotion for a country and its people, albeit one seen through the dark and twisted prism of someone with the most jaundiced view of human nature.

That L’Aîné des Ferchaux feels like the odd man out in Melville’s filmography is probably down to the fact that it was one of the few films (the other being
Les Enfants terribles, 1950) which he did not himself initiate.  It was Fernand Lumbroso, a distinguished theatre producer, who set the wheels in motion, hoping to make his film production debut with an adaptation of Georges Simenon’s 1943 novel Un jeune homme honorable.  Lumbroso immediately envisaged Alain Delon for the role of the younger leading protagonist; whilst Delon was interested in the project, he withdrew at the last moment, lured away by Michelangelo Antonioni to take the lead in L’Eclisse (1962).  Belmondo was cast in his place and it was this actor who insisted that Jean-Pierre Melville direct the film, even though the two men had had an extremely strained relationship on their previous film, Le Doulos (1962).  

The first thing that Melville did was to completely refashion Simeon’s novel, to give it a more American feel.  At first, he intended to offer an account of the real-life disappearance of the American tycoon Howard Hughes.  After numerous rewrites, the film morphed into something quite different, a drama revolving around a disillusioned banker and go-getting younger man who develop an uncomfortable dependency, a kind of father-son relationship, that is tainted by mutual distrust and loathing (perhaps a reflection of Melville’s own fraught relationship with Belmondo).  Being an ex-boxer himself, Belmondo was an obvious casting choice for the part of the young boxer Michel Maudet, but who should take the role of the older man?  Initially, Melville considered the acclaimed American film actor Spencer Tracy and then Charles Boyer for the part.  When neither of these was available, he opted for another screen veteran of comparable renown, Charles Vanel.

The casting of Vanel was inspired as it allowed the actor to give one of his finest performances, but it was to prove a nightmare for the film’s production.  Right from the outset, Melville and Vanel failed to get along, and minor differences of opinion over the script soon escalated into full-blown enmity.  It was Vanel’s insistence that he be accompanied by his wife which put the mockers on Melville’s original intention to shoot the entire film in the United States.  As a result, the film had to be made in France, although a small film crew was sent off to the USA to film a few location inserts.   Inevitably, these ructions exacerbated Belmondo’s dislike for Melville’s method of working and what began as grudging mutual respect soon developed into undisguised contempt on both sides.  By the time the filming was under way, Melville was barely on speaking terms with either of his lead actors, and  it is perhaps a small miracle that the film was ever completed.  Needless to say, neither actor worked with Melville again afterwards.

It is a testament to the professionalism of all concerned than none of this backstage antagonism is undetectable in the finished product.  Whatever their feelings for their director, both Vanel and Belmondo turn in a performance of exceptional quality and complement one another admirably.  Each actor brings a subtle pathos, humanity and dark introspection to his portrayal which masks the apparent shortcomings in the script whilst giving the film its unmistakable noir pungency.  The film is pervaded by the same sense of futility, macho solitariness and existential anxiety which permeates all of Melville’s gangster films, and the uneasy rapport that develops between Vanel and Belmondo’s characters is an obvious expression of the need that men have to form relationships, however improbable, in a cold, unfeeling universe that offers few tangible comforts. 

In 2001, L’Aîné des Ferchaux was remade as a film for French television, directed by Bernard Stora and starring none other than Jean-Paul Belmondo in the role of the fugitive millionaire Ferchaux.  Belmondo’s part in the earlier film was taken by Samy Naceri, the young actor who became an overnight star through his lead role in Gérard Pirès’s 1998 film Taxi.
 
Whilst L’Aîné des Ferchaux is not generally as well-regarded as Melville’s other films and was a massive flop on its initial release, it represents an essential place in his oeuvre and should not be overlooked by devotees of this great auteur of French cinema.

© James Travers 2011

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