|
Overview
Les Héros sont fatigués is a French thriller film first released in 1955,
directed by Yves Ciampi.
The film stars Yves Montand, Marķa Félix, Jean Servais, Elisabeth Manet and Gert Fröbe.
It has also been released under the title: Heroes and Sinners.
Our overall rating for this film is: very good.
Synopsis
A former war-time pilot Michel Rivière arrives in the African
town of Free City, hoping to find a buyer for some diamonds he found
hidden in his aircraft after it crash-landed. He stays at the
town’s only hotel, which is run by an alcoholic Frenchman named
Séverin, a one-time Nazi collaborator.
Séverin’s vicious racism is fuelled when he learns that his wife
Manuella has been having an affair with a black man. In a
desperate bid to escape her tyrannical husband, Manuella allows
Rivière to take her as his mistress. After a tense few days,
Rivière finds someone willing to take the diamonds off his hands
- Wolf Gerke, an ex-Luftwaffe fighter pilot who has been sent to
recover the missing jewels. Rivière initially rejects
Gerke’s offer but, realising that he has much in common with him, comes
up with an unexpected business proposition. The two men will sell
the diamonds for the highest price they can get and create their own
aviation company. No sooner has Gerke agreed to this proposal
than Séverin absconds with the precious jewels. Unless
Rivière can recover the diamonds, all his dreams will be
shattered...
Film Review
A superb cast and some top-notch production values make Les Héros sont fatigués
one of the most striking examples of French film noir of the
1950s. The international success of Du rififi chez les hommes
(1955), released a few months previously, brought a new impetus to film
noir in France and films such as this proved immensely popular with
French audiences, laying the foundation for the classic polar which
would come to dominate French cinema in the following decades. The
influence of 1940s American film noir is evident both in the grimly
fatalist tone of the story and in its expressionistic presentation, the
brooding, high contrast monochrome photography conveying a stifling
sense of confinement and ineluctable doom.
© James Travers 2011 Write a review for this film... User Comments
What do you think of this film?
Related links
Recent DVD releases
|
Credits
Similar films:
If you like this film you may also like the following: Adieu, poulet (1975) L’Aîné des Ferchaux (1963) Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (1958) Dernier domicile connu (1970) Entre onze heures et minuit (1949) Judex (1963) Juste avant la nuit (1971) Mélodie en sous-sol (1963) Le Pacha (1968) Pickpocket (1959) Quai des Orfèvres (1947) Le Trou (1960) Un témoin dans la ville (1959) Le Voleur (1967) |


