Film Review
Before moving to Hollywood, where he helmed a string of minor classics
including
Conflict (1945) (with Humphrey
Bogart) and
Possessed (1947) (with Joan
Crawford), Curtis Bernhardt directed a handful of films in France, most
of which are now all but forgotten. Immediately before making his
Hollywood debut with
My Love Came
Back (1940), Bernhardt crowned his brief career in France with
Nuit de décembre, a delicate
melodrama which feels like an overture to the many fine films that were
to come. The fairly anodyne plot is taken from a novel by
Bernhard Kellermann, whose best known work,
Der Tunnel, had already been
adapted for cinema by Bernhardt, as both a German and French language
film (with Jean Gabin starring in the French version,
Le
Tunnel (1933)).
Nuit de décembre's main
virtue is that it brings together two of the leading lights of 1930s
French cinema, Pierre Blanchar and Renée Saint-Cyr, and under
Bernhardt's adept direction both actors impress with performances that
rate as being among their best. As he demonstrated in his
memorable portrayal of Raskolnikov in Pierre Chenal's
Crime et châtiment
(1935), Blanchar is most in his element when playing complex, tortured
individuals, and in Bernhardt's film he gives an admirable
interpretation of a good man who becomes soured by a love affair that
goes badly wrong (for reasons which are never explained).
Blanchar's transformation from suave young pianist to embittered and
tyrannical music maestro is as poignant as it is dramatic, and it can
be argued that he never again delivered a screen performance of this
quality.
What goes for Blanchar goes equally for his delectable co-star
Renée Saint-Cyr, who does an excellent job of delineating
between the two characters she plays in the film, the one a mysterious
object of desire with a fay charm, the other a tangible modern woman,
real and prosaic. Tragic to think that after the war this great
actress would be mostly relegated to supporting roles in less worthy
films, including many directed by her son, Georges Lautner. Jean
Tissier, another actor who was greatly in demand in this era, is a
welcome addition to the cast, which includes some notable
stars-in-the-making in minor roles: Bernard Blier, Dora Doll and (blink
and you'll miss him) Serge Reggiani. Mainly on the strength of
its performances,
Nuit de
décembre has stood the test of time better than many
French film melodramas of this period, and even if it pales in comparison with
Bernhardt's subsequent Hollywood offerings, it is highly recommended, a
bleak sonata on the cruelty of love and the fragility of illusions.
© James Travers 2015
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Film Synopsis
In 1919, Pierre Darmont, a world-class pianist, falls in love with an
attractive young woman named Anne, but after a night of passion she
mysteriously walks out of his life, never to return. Twenty years
later, Pierre is at the height of his fame, but he is also a bitter
man, unable to carry on a long-term relationship with any woman he is
attracted to. Then, one day, he meets Hélène, who
is the exact double of the woman he lost his heart to twenty years
previously. Realising that Hélène reciprocates his
feelings, Pierre asks her to marry him. Then her adopted father
intervenes with the devastating news that Pierre is in fact
Hélène 's father...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.