Film Review
Like other film directors who started their careers in the late 1930s,
Pierre Chenal had to change with the times, and dark films like
L'Homme de nulle part,
L'Alibi
and
La Foire aux chimères
made way for the crime dramas of the 1950s and 60s, films like
Rafles sur la ville,
Les Jeux dangereux and
La Bête à l'affût.
For his penultimate film, Chenal was inspired by Fred Kassak's novel
A Cottage and a Murder.
Transformed into a fine black and white crime-comedy, the film is not
representative of Chenal's filmography.
We see the great Paul Meurisse perfectly cast as 'the murderer who
knows the score'. Meurisse, who was considered the most
snobbish actor at the time, plays a character who is seriously funny,
with a cynical twist, and will do it several times between 1962 and
1965. The choice of German actress Maria Schell to play an
Alsatian woman is totally obvious. Maria, sister of the actor
Maximilian Schell, was also perfectly capable of handling a role in
French, as she showed in such diverse films as
Napoléon,
Gervaise,
Une
vie and
Le Diable par la queue. It is
also worth mentioning the presence of two other marvellous actors in
second roles: Noël Roquevert and Jacques Dufilho No
wonder the film gets a 3 star rating and can be found on DVD.
© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium) 2012
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Pierre Chenal film:
Le Martyre de l'obèse (1933)
Film Synopsis
Lionel Fribourg is a musician who is desperate to compose his own
symphony. For that reason, he needs peace and quiet, but his
Parisian apartment is so noisy that it is impossible for him to write a
single note. By pure coincidence, he meets Agnès, a woman
who lives alone in a big house in the country. They start a
relationship and Lionel quickly realises that her peaceful house would
be perfect for him. However, there is a problem.
Agnès's father, Monsieur Devillard, intends to come and live
with her. The man is a carpenter and his only interest is in
making boats, which he does very noisily. When Lionel pays
Devillard a visit, he realise that the man doesn't like him and will be
his eternal enemy. So why should he not kill him? Alas,
this will only be the first in a series of murders...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.