Tête blonde (1949)
Directed by Maurice Cam

Film Review

The plot of Tête blonde is one that would have appealed to Alfred Hitchcock, a variant on the "wrong man" theme that seems to run through most of his films.  Hitchcock's love of the macabre is also apparent in the film, when a seemingly innocent parcel is found to contain the severed head of a blonde woman (the most familiar of Hitchcockian motifs).  Yet this is no Hitchcockian thriller but a weirdly off-beat French black comedy, the kind of film that is incredibly hard to come by in French cinema.  Marcel Carné's Drôle de drame (1937) and Jean Faurez's Histoires extraordinaires (1949) are two other notable incursions into black comedy, but these are rarities in a genre that has traditionally been given a wide berth by French filmmakers.

Tête blonde makes a good companion piece to Frank Capra's Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), and is in some respects a superior film as it dispenses with the overdone theatrical silliness of Capra's overrated comedy.  The film's most implausible plot point - why a man should pick up a strange parcel in the metro (not something any sane person would do these days) - is explained by the extreme shortage of food in France (exacerbated by severe rationing) in the aftermath of WWII.  The rest of the film unfolds in the manner of a Kafkaesque thriller, with an innocent man apparently stuck on a judicial conveyor belt destined for the nearest guillotine.  What could easily have been a very dark film noir is cleverly skewed into a highly entertaining black comedy.

Well-known for playing cads, crooks and con artists of varying shades of polished venality, Jules Berry is not the obvious choice for the lead role of the man who is mistaken for a slasher killer but it is a part that suits him perfectly.  This could well be Berry's finest hour, as his performance is not only tirelessly funny but also incredibly true to life.  Berry's reaction to finding a severed head, his desperation when he is unable to rid himself of this gruesome find, and then the sense of despair that takes him over when he realises that he is a doomed man - these are all harrowingly authentic and yet we cannot help laughing at his predicament.  We shed absolutely no tears for Berry when he had his comeuppance as the scoundrel Batala in Jean Renoir's Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), but in Tête blonde we are with him every inch of the way.  This is Berry's moment of redemption.

Whilst this is Jules Berry's film, lock, stock and gore-filled barrel, there is no shortage of talent elsewhere in the cast.  Denise Grey is superb as Berry's hysterical wife (her reaction on seeing the eponymous head cuts through you like a guillotine blade) and is well-matched by the 'other woman', Michèle Philippe at her most glamorous as the supposed murder victim.  The latter's scene with a sinister-looking Mouloudji eerily prefigures Janet Leigh's fateful meeting with Anthony Perkins at the Bates Motel.  Pauline Carton and Louis Seigner both provide a humorous take on the roles they specialised in, respectively the mischievous domestic and rigid authority figure.  And then there is Jean Tissier, a delight to watch as he gives Berry a lesson in how to get away with murder by feigning insanity.  The only let down is Maurice Cam's mostly uninspired direction, which doesn't do justice to the script or the performances and draws attention to the budgetary constraints in some scenes.  This one shortcoming is easily forgiven, however, and, thanks to a magnificent turn from Jules Berry in the twilight of his career, Tête blonde makes a memorably enjoyable danse macabre.

Film Synopsis

As he heads home one evening, Frédéric Truche is delighted when he spies an abandoned parcel on a luggage rack in the Paris metro.  Thinking that the parcel contains ham, butter or some other rationed commodity, he takes it home, knowing that his wife will appreciate his lucky find.  Opening the parcel, the Truches are horrified to find a woman's severed head.  Despite his best efforts, Monsieur Truche is unable to dispose of the troublesome head and he ends up having to bury it in his cellar.  The next day, the newspapers report that the dismembered remains of a young woman have been found in several locations around Paris.   The murder victim is believed to be Claire Fontanier, whose disappearance has just been reported to the police by her housekeeper.  When it is revealed that Claire is Monsieur Truche's mistress it is not long before the police put two and two together and arrest the unfortunate Truche.  The discovery of the dead woman's head in his cellar merely confirms his guilt...