Les Espions (1957) - film review

Dr Malic is the director of a run-down psychiatric clinic.  One evening, a stranger, Colonel Howard, offers him a huge some of money to shelter a secret agent named Alex.  No sooner has Malic accepted the bizarre commission than he finds everyone around him – his staff, his patients, even the bartender in his pub – is replaced by a stranger with a foreign accent.  Increasingly perturbed by what is happening, Malic decides to uncover the truth for himself, but only ends up getting embroiled in a deeper mystery…

Henri-Georges Clouzot followed his masterful and hugely successful suspense thriller Les Diaboliques (1955) with this perplexing parody thriller, a far less satisfactory work that proved to be something of a commercial embarrassment.  Despite a remarkable international cast – which includes Peter Ustinov and Curd Jürgens – Les Espions fails to ignite in the way that Clouzot’s earlier thrillers did.  The laboured, uninspired direction does little to sustain the interest of the spectator as the torturously complex plot thickens without any let up towards its utterly baffling, unresolved denouement.  The film’s only real selling point is the dark, slightly surreal humour that Clouzot manages to inject into the film.  If only he had gone the whole hog and made this a black comedy rather than a half-hearted spy parody it may have been a far more interesting and rewarding film.

© James Travers 2006

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