Menaces (1940)
Directed by Edmond T. Gréville

Film Review

Edmond T. Gréville's intensely bleak drama Menaces is a film centred on man's inherent dual nature that reflects not only the turbulent era in which it was made (in the months preceding the start of the Second World War) but also its own chequered production.  Initially titled Cinq jours d'angoisse, the first recording of the film was destroyed in a fire and the filming had to be repeated.  By this time, events had moved on and the script was amended, almost on a daily basis, to keep up to date with the rapidly unfolding events in Europe.  During the war, the film was very nearly lost forever a second time, but, having saved the film, Gréville decided to change the ending after the Liberation in 1944.  The film hence exists in two versions, the first with a pessimistic ending, released in 1939, the second, with a more upbeat ending, released in 1945.

Whilst Menaces may not be Gréville's best work (the production difficulties leave their mark on the film), there are aspects of it that make it well worth watching.  Not long before he left France to resume his career in Hollywood (in such films as Five Graves to Cairo (1943) and The Lady and the Doctor (1944)), Erich von Stroheim gives a perfectly judged performance as a disillusioned war veteran who gets to sum up the situation of impending war with the film's best line about the dual aspect of human nature.  Von Stroheim spent most of his career playing military officers, most famously in Jean Renoir's La Grande illusion (1937), and he is at his best when his portrayal betrays a loathing and fear for war, as it does here.

Even if the director's last minute tinkering with the film now appears clumsy and painfully at odds with its naturally doom-laden thrust, the film provides a valuable historical perspective on one of the most traumatic periods in the history of mankind.  After the war, Gréville directed von Stroheim in another gloomy drama, L'Envers du paradis (1953).

Film Synopsis

France in 1938.  Despite the Munich Agreement, the outbreak of war seems imminent.  In a small Parisian hotel, several disparate individuals take refuge from the storm clouds that are gathering over Europe.  Denise, an attractive young dress vendeuse, hopes soon to marry Dick Stone, an English journalist.  She is alarmed when her neighbour, Louis, an artist, reveals his obsession for her, but she agrees to accompany him to his barracks where he will start his military service.  Another boarder in the hotel is an Austrian refugee, Hoffmann, who was facially disfigured whilst serving in the last war and who now, despite his good work as a doctor, finds himself increasingly alienated.  Everyone hopes for peace, but each fears the worst...