Huit hommes dans un château (1942)
Directed by Richard Pottier

Film Review

Richard Pottier may have had most success at the French box office with his films showcasing the talents of musical legends Tino Rossi and Luis Mariano but his most inspired films were his series of moody (and often tongue-in-cheek) crime dramas that he made in the 1940s.  Before he made Picpus (1943) and Les Caves du Majestic (1945), two enjoyable noir-like outings for Inspector Maigret (played by Albert Préjean), Pottier delivered one of his best crime films, Huit hommes dans un château, an entertaining Agatha Christie-like murder mystery taken from a novel by Jean Kéry.  Writers Jean Aurenche and Jean-Paul Le Chanois succeed in rendering a formulaic plot interesting by dressing it up with a weird assortment of characters and making the most of the plot twists in Kéry's potboiler novel.

In common with most of Pottier's other crime films, Huit hommes dans un château is a sombre affair with is lightened by some judicious smatterings of humour.  In the director's Maigret films, the humour comes from the awkward relationship between Jules Miagret and his stammering sidekick Lucas.  In Huit hommes dans un château, a husband and wife who write crime novels and fancy themselves as amateur detectives serve the same function - effectively, they are a rip-off of Agatha Christie's sleuths Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, enjoyably portrayed by René Dary and Jacqueline Gauthier.  This is one of the few films in which Dary took the lead role, at a time when he was considered as a possible replacement for Jean Gabin after the latter's 'defection' to Hollywood. 

Dary began his screen career at the age of three, appearing in a long series of short films by Louis Feuillade under the name Bébé Abelard (a name taken from the stage name of his father, an illustrious comic performer).  He enjoyed a long stint as an actor but never achieved stardom, consigned to supporting roles for almost the entire duration of his career.  Stardom also eluded Jacqueline Gauthier, who had an equally long and busy career, although she devoted more of her time to the theatre.  Dary and Gauthier make such an effective team in Huit hommes dans un château that you wonder why they never made a return as the competitive Paladine sleuths.  Some other fine actors who are practically forgotten today - Georges Grey, Louis Salou and Aline Carola - add further lustre to the film and prevent it from being just another run-of-the-mill murder mystery.

Richard Pottier may not have been the most inspired of filmmakers but he was a reasonably accomplished jobbing director and occasionally surpassed himself with some unexpected bursts of creativity.  Huit hommes dans un château owes its distinctive eerie atmosphere to some imaginative use of lighting and camerawork, which endows the titular château with a genuine aura of menace.  A long tracking shot through the deserted halls and passages of the crumbling old building is repeated once the château has been restored to its former glory, in a way that spookily prefigures both Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la bête (1946) and the memorable opening to Alain Resnais' L'Année dernière à Marienbad (1961).  Pottier's main achievement with this film is in making the château an important player in the drama, not just a static backdrop.  As in Jean Epstein's La Chute de la maison Usher (1928) (which could well have been an inspiration), the ancient building appears to be alive, a malignant entity intent on destroying those who seek to possess it.  If only Pottier had his writers had more of this the film could have been one of the most interesting of the Occupation era, instead of one which is now almost totally forgotten.

Film Synopsis

René and Jacqueline Paladine are a pair of crime writers in search of inspiration for their next novel.  After watching a newsreel reporting the sinking of an ocean liner, their curiosity is aroused when one of the survivors dies in mysterious circumstances.  In the dead man's pocket, René finds a train ticket which leads him and his wife to a dilapidated château belonging to Hélène de Chanceau and her mother.  Having depleted their fortune, the latter are forced to sell their ancestral home and the first person to show an interest in buying the château is Delaunay, a wealthy man who, coincidentally, is one of the passengers who survived the sinking of the liner.  When Delaunay offers to marry Hélène, she refuses.  She has already lost her heart to a young actor, Alain Severac, who belong to a theatre troupe that is performing in the area.  At the auction of the château, there is consternation when Severac makes the winning bid, offering a million francs for Hélène's home.  Shortly after the contracts have been signed Severac is murdered.  It is time for the Paladines to spring into action and solve the mystery, unaware that a killer has them in his sights...