La Dame d'onze heures (1948)
Directed by Jean-Devaivre

Film Review

In the course of twelve years Jean Devaivre directed just ten features and would most likely have passed into obscurity were it not for the fact that Bertrand Tavernier made him the subject of his 2002 film Laissez-passer, inspired by Devaivre's own account of his experiences during the Occupation.  Even though he was an assistant to a number of prominent filmmakers of his time - Maurice Tourneur on La Main du diable (1943), André Cayatte on Au bonheur des dames (1943) - his own films seldom achieved much in the way of distinction and most are pretty mundane.  La Dame d'onze heures (1948), his second feature, is probably the most interesting of the films he made, simply because it is so unlike any other mainstream cinema offering at the time.

The film derives from a typical potboiler crime novel by Pierre Apestéguy, adapted by Jean-Paul Le Chanois, whose own directing career would considerably outshine Devaivre's.  The plot is standard B-movie fare, a routine 1940s policier with no great interest.  What is interesting is what Le Chanois and Devaivre do with it, which is to give it the full Orson Welles treatment and turn it into the most outlandish baroque send-up of its genre, effectively making it the Citizen Kane of the French murder mystery.  The film heralds its own unrestrained eccentricity with an introductory sequence that takes the place of the expected opening credits (surely a first).  Lookingly like a crazily put-together trailer, the main plot points are thrown at us in a compressed and confusing form and then, even more bizarrely, played backwards at high speed before showing us the protagonists as a collection of marionettes being operated by a giant hand.

The narrative then gets under way proper and soon loses most of the audience with a plot that is so muddled and manically spliced together that it is virtually impossible to make sense of it.  A ludicrously over-the-top score from Joseph Kosma adds to the impression that this is a film that has been assembled in a madhouse.  The authors have great fun sending up the familiar thriller clichés, whilst at the same time giving the impression they are taking it all deadly seriously.  French cinema audiences would have to wait at least another twelve years to see anything half as self-consciously unhinged as this, when the Nouvelle Vague crowd came along and began indulging in the same kind of gratuitous genre-exploding silliness.

For such a wacky film it is surprising how many familiar actors were roped into it, and even more surprising is how well they serve it.  Paul Meurisse would later become a habitué of the thriller parody, most notably as Commandant Dromard in Georges Lautner's Le Monocle films, so his casting as the smooth criminal investigator S.O.S. in a similarly deranged thriller is perhaps not so unexpected - particularly as he had already played a virtually identical character in Jacques Daroy's Inspecteur Sergil (1947).  Likewise Jean Tissier, an actor who was naturally disposed to off-the-wall films, appears to be in his element as a decidely dodgy butler.  What is far more unexpected is the presence of such distinguished character actors as Pierre Renoir, Debucourt, Jean Brochard and Palau, to say nothing of minor stars of the period, Micheline Francey and Gilbert Gil.

La Dame d'onze heures has a quality cast which it deploys to the greatest effect, and there are very few Jean Devaivre films where the same can be said with such confidence.  Not only does he get the best from his actors (Meurisse is especially on form), Devaivre throws in a few inspired directorial touches, such as breaking the fourth wall (virtually unheard of at the time) by allowing his actors to speak directly into the camera.  In spite of its outrageous excesses and a plot of truly mind-scrambling proportions, the film manages to take us with it, although it is quite a bumpy joyride and a comfy cushion is recommended.  If Devaivre had been able to sustain this inspired streak for the rest of his career, perhaps encouraging others to follow his example instead of going with the flow, who knows what bizarre paths French cinema may have taken in the 1950s?  The French New Wave may never have happened...

Film Synopsis

On his return from Africa, Stanislas Octave Seminario, who likes to be referred to by his initials S.O.S., visits his friends, the Pescaras, at their grand house in the country.  For some time he has been carrying a torch for Muriel, the daughter of the household, so he is disappointed to hear that she is engaged to another man, a young pharmacy student named Paul Wantz.  S.O.S. becomes intrigue when Muriel's brother Charles reveals that recently his father Gérard has been receiving threatening letters signed Vimy.  In a lunatic asylum near Arras, Charles is surprised to find the body of a woman who is the exact double of his sister.  Not long afterwards, he is found dead, apparently poisoned.  His father soon goes the same way.

Suspecting that Wantz may be implicated in these killings, S.O.S. looks into his past and learns that he was recently married to a nurse named Hélène Tassin, who was blackmailing the Pescaras.  Realising that the game is up, Wantz disappears, taking Muriel with him.  From a signed confession by Gérard Pescara, S.O.S. then discovers the significance of Vimy - it was the place where Pescara had an affair which resulted in the birth of his illegitimate daughter, who is the exact image of Muriel.  This is the woman Charles discovered by chance just before his death.  Realising that Muriel is in the greatest of danger, S.O.S. hurries after her for a final confrontation with the fiend who has already murdered three people and could quite easily kill again...