Les Mystères de Paris (1962)

Eugène Sue’s celebrated novel Les Mystères de Paris (first published in 1842) has been adapted many times for the cinema but the best known version is this colourful 1962 blockbuster, starring French film icon Jean Marais in yet another of his athletic historical roles.  Well-paced, stylish and beautifully photographed, the film was enthusiastically directed by André Hunebelle, who had previously worked with Marais on some very popular swashbucklers - Le Bossu (1960) and Le Capitan (1960).  With Jean Marais at the height of his popularity, the film proved to be a huge commercial success, attracting an audience in France of almost three million, making it one of the biggest hits of the year.

The film’s distinguished cast includes Raymond Pellegrin as the deliciously evil villain of the piece (it is obligatory to boo and hiss every time he appears on the screen), the sensual Dany Robin as Marais’s ill-fated fiancée and the eye-catching British actress Jill Haworth in one of her earliest screen roles.  Acting stalwarts Noël Roquevert and Pierre Mondy make welcome appearances, although it is often the lesser known character actors who most grab our attention, particularly Renée Gardès who is magnificently grotesque as the despicable hag Chouette. 

Whilst it is by no means the most inspired or intelligent literary adaptation French cinema has given us, Les Mystères de Paris is still a massively enjoyable adventure romp that offers both a bleak insight into the harsh inequalities that existed in post-revolutionary France under the reign of Louis-Philippe and some very well choreographed action sequences.  Marais seems to positively relish the dangerous situations his character manages to get himself out of, miraculously escaping from burning buildings and flooded cellars like a 19th Century Harry Houdini.  Hunebelle would bring together Marais and Pellegrin a few years later in his most famous film, Fantômas (1964), with Pellgrin providing the distinctive voice for Marais’s masked arch-villain.

© James Travers 2011

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