Le Rendez-vous (1961)
Directed by Jean Delannoy

Film Review

The film director and screenwriter Jean Delannoy was once very closely associated with the quality tradition of French cinema in the 1940s but, for some reason, his reputation has not endured as those of his contemporaries (Renoir, Duvivier, Carné, etc.).  Delannoy's films represented France three times at the Cannes Film Festival and four times at the Venice Mostra, and they rarely failed to attract large audiences at home.  The critics of the 1950s (notably those who became directors of the French New Wave) may have given Delannoy a hard time, judging his films to be too academic, but he was throughout his career a popular, well-regarded and extremely versatile filmmaker.  The defining characteristic of his oeuvre is its eclecticism, with genres ranging from prestigious period pieces to profoundly religious works, films about childhood, noirish thrillers and numerous literary adaptations.

By the 1960s, Delannoy was beginning to lose his craftsman's touch but he still managed to knock out substantial films with popular appeal.  Le Rendez-vous, released on 4th October 1961, is one such film, a meaty murder mystery adapted from Patrick Quentin's novel The Man with Two Wives by the legendary screenwriting duo Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost.  This slow burner combines illicit passion and upper crust intrigue with a complex whodunit plot worthy of Agatha Christie.  Robert Juillard's black and white photography adds greatly to the mood of the piece, as does Paul Misraki's soft jazz score, which is vaguely reminiscent of the haunting theme he had written a few years earlier for another popular Delannoy film, Maigret tend un piège (1958).

Another plus is the top notch cast which Delannoy somehow managed to assemble for his derivative but compelling crowd-pleaser.  Annie Girardot shines in one of her early starring roles as the lost and bruised Madeleine, one of the numerous suspects in this convoluted criminal intrigue.  The actor-singer Jean-Claude Pascal is an equally felicitous choice for the part of Pierre, an unlucky writer caught in the whirlwind of a troubled past and a restless future.  Odile Versois, first seen (alongside her sister Marina Vlady) in Robert Hossein's Toi le vénin, plays the sweet Edith, the eldest daughter of an oil tycoon.  Meanwhile, Andréa Parisy (revealed in Marcel Carné's Les Tricheurs) has the more interesting role of Daphné, the bad seed of the wealthy Kellerman family.

Philippe Noiret (in his fifth film) is suitably chosen to play the sneaky police inspector in charge of the criminal investigation, eclipsing both Michel Piccoli (then a fairly obscure actor) and Jean-François Poron (who had previously appeared in Delannoy's La Princesse de Clèves).  Last but by no means least, there is the superb British actor George Sanders, who had enjoyed a massive career in America and the UK in the previous two decades - who better to play (in French) the rich and ruthless oil baron, Kellerman - a dastardly smooth close relation of J.R. Ewing?

Le Rendez-vous may have been a hit in its time (attracting an audience of 1.2 million in France) but it is almost completely overlooked today, even by keen admirers of Jean Delannoy's work.  Its recent, long overdue appearance on DVD will hopefully change that and strain those petites cellules grises of those who are brave enough to watch it...

© Willems Henri (Brussels, Belgium) 2013

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Next Jean Delannoy film:
Les Amitiés particulières (1964)

Film Synopsis

When photographer Daniel Marchand is shot dead, the finger of suspicion points immediately to two women -  Edith, the daughter of the oil baron John Kellerman, and Madeleine, the ex-wife of Edith's husband, Pierre Larivière.   A third suspect is Daphné, Kellerman's other daughter, who allowed Marchand to take lewd photographs of her shortly before his death.  To protect his family's reputation, Kellerman compels Pierre to provide an alibi for Daphné, even though he was with Madeleine on the night of the killing.  Just who did kill Daniel Marchand - and why?