|
|
French films Thriller
|
As artistic director of the Gaumont film company, Louis Feuillade was keen to capitalise on the success of the Fantômas series of novels, written by Pierre Souvestre et Marcel Allain. These novels were a world-wide phenomenon in their day, their readership extending far beyond France, with 32 complete novels published between 1910 and Souvestre’s death on the eve of World War...
[More...]
|
|
The second instalment in Louis Feuillade’s five-part Fantômas serial sees a substantial shift towards the more familiar action thriller, making this a spectacular contrast to the first film in the series. Although perhaps less atmospheric and menacing than the first film, Juve contre Fantômas has other pleasures...
[More...]
|
|
Le Mort qui tue is the third, and in some ways the most sophisticated, of the five Fantômas films by Louis Feuillade. Not only is it an exemplary silent film for its time, it is also a masterpiece of suspense and intrigue, possibly the earliest example of what we would recognise today as the suspense thriller, or the true French polar...
[More...]
|
|
The plot thickens with this, the fourth instalment in Feuillade’s epic Fantômas cycle, based on the popular novels of Souvestre et Allain. Juve and Fantômas are suspected of being one in the same man (which is quite plausible given Juve’s clever subterfuge in the previous Fantômas film). Later the real Fantômas (or is it Juve after all?) sets up a fund...
[More...]
|
|
After the huge success of the Fantômas serial between 1913 and 1914, Gaumont were more than eager to produce another serial, mainly to fend off competition from the rival French film company Pathé (which had just acquired the rights to an American serial, Les Mystères de New York). Louis Feuillade delivered a crime serial in a similar vein...
[More...]
|
|
Jean Renoir is not normally associated with the crime thriller genre, but in La Nuit du carrefour he manages to turn out a more than satisfactory adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel. Whilst it is apparent that the director is still experimenting with his technique, he shows a surprising maturity and in this film he appears to be defining the ground rules for what would become one of the...
[More...]
|
|
L’Alibi is one of two very popular film noir thrillers made by the French film director Pierre Chenal in the 1930s. The other, Le Dernier tournant (1939), was the first film adaptation of the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. From a stylistic point of view, both films are rather good examples of early film noir...
[More...]
|
|
An undisputed classic of French cinema, Pépé le Moko combines poetic realism with gangster thriller, making this one of the earliest and best examples of the French film noir genre. The film clearly carries the echo of the film which inspired its director, Howard Hawk’s 1932 masterpiece Scarface (which became the prototype for the American gangster movie of the 1930s)...
[More...]
|
|
Les Disparus de Saint-Agil is classic of French cinema, an atmospheric comedy thriller with dark elements of fantasy and mysticism, which is regarded as one of director Christian-Jaque’s best works. It is a film which vividly contrasts the naïve romanticism of young boys with the cruelty and materialism of men and is simultaneously an entertaining and disturbing work...
[More...]
|
|
A stylish melange of fairy tale, romance, melodrama and suspense thriller, L’Assassinat du Père Noël is typical of French cinema of the early 1940s. Whilst France lived through its darkest hour, its cinema attained a quality of form and expression which is virtually unmatched in any other period. Some of the brightest...
[More...]
|
|
This early example of the French mystery crime thriller (or ‘polar’) manages to evoke the American film noir genre which inspired it, most notably in the shadowy sets and atmospheric photography. It also manages to bring in another important genre of American cinema in the 1930s and ‘40s, the lavish song and dance film...
[More...]
|
|
Clouzot’s first full length film is a mild contrast with the dark, suspense-laden thrillers for which the director is best known (Les Diaboliques, Le Salaire de la peur ), but it is an excellent example of the early polar genre of the 1940s. L’Assassin habite au 21 is a comedy thriller whodunnit which, although lighter than Clouzot’s later films...
[More...]
|
|
With its extraordinary combination of black comedy, thriller, romance and neo-realist flourishes, Goupi mains rouges is almost certainly Jacques Becker’s most unusual film, and one which offers a rare unromantic depiction of French country life. It was made at the time of the German occupation of France during World War II and...
[More...]
|
|
Le Corbeau is regarded today as a masterpiece of French cinema it created a storm of controversy when it was released. The film was banned after the war because of its perceived subversive and immoral overtones. The story was based on a real-life case which took place in the French town of Tulle in the 1920s. The film is an excellent suspense thriller...
[More...]
|
|
Made by Continental Films at the time of the Nazi Occupation, Picpus was the first of three films to feature popular actor Albert Préjean in the role of Inspector Maigret. (The other two films were Cécile est morte (1944) and Les Caves du Majestic (1945)). Whilst the film manages to evoke the dark atmosphere of Georges Simenon’s famous Maigret novels...
[More...]
|
|
Aventure est au coin de la rue is a spirited comedy which attempts to blend gangster thriller and drawing room farce, with some success. Claude Renoir’s photography gives the film a touch of classic film noir which adds a quality dimension to what would otherwise be regarded as a pretty ordinary mid-1940s comedy. The comedy thriller was a fairly unusual genre at the time this film...
[More...]
|
|
In this, the second of the three Maigret films made by the German-run Continental Films during the Occupation, popular film star Albert Préjean reprises his role as the famed pipe-smoking detective, accompanied by his improbable side-kick Lucas. Although, again, the film fails to capture the atmosphere of the Georges Simenon novel on which it is based...
[More...]
|
|
Albert Préjean stars as the famed Parisian detective created by Georges Simenon in this, the third and last of the Maigret films made by Continental Films during the Nazi Occupation of France. Noticeably different in tone to the preceding two films (Picpus and Cécile est morte), Les Caves du Majestic is more successful at evoking the famous atmosphere of Simenon’s novels...
[More...]
|
|
Un ami viendra ce soir was one of the surprisingly few films made in France immediately after the Second World War which attempted to recount the experiences of the war. The only other film of note made at this time and tackling the same subject is René Clément’s La Bataille du rail (1946). Both of these films are heavily preoccupied with repaying the debt owed to the...
[More...]
|
|
After his largely lacklustre stint in Hollywood during World War II, Julien Duvivier returned to France a changed man, and this is clearly reflected in his first French film after the war, Panique. Disillusioned with the mawkish tendency of American cinema, with its obligatory "Happy End", Divivier set out to make a film that better reflected the times he lived in...
[More...]
|
© filmsdefrance.com 2009