Les Anciens de Saint-Loup (1950) - film review

Former pupils of a boy’s boarding school, Saint-Loup, are invited back for a reunion.  The guests turn up, eager to revisit the setting of their happy childhoods and renew old acquaintances.   But they are surprised to discover that the school is in a state of disrepair. The principal Monsieur Jacquelin reveals that he invited them back to ask them to lend him money to save the school from being closed.  Unfortunately, the most likely benefactor, the eminent banker Jean Laclaux, is facing financial ruin, and none of the other guests has the money required to save the school.  To make matters worse, the principal’s neice, Catherine, who was planning to run away with Laclaux, has been shot dead...

Georges Lampin makes a reasonable job of directing a film that seems to have an identity crisis almost from the first scene.  The cocktail of film noir, romantic intrigue, thriller whodunit, sentimental nostalgia and mild comedy is a tad indigestible, in spite of some fine contributions from a high calibre cast.  Whilst the first half of the film works well, particularly in the way the characters are explored and played off against one another, the narrative does feel pretty aimless.   But it is in the film’s last twenty minutes or so that things go badly wrong and the plot becomes absurdly fragmented and implausible, with no real attempt at a tidy resolution.

© James Travers 2006

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