Film Review
Tourments was the last film
that Tino Rossi starred in and whilst he still remained active as a
chansonnier for many more years, he had few regrets about ending his
film career (Rossi did make a fleeting appearance in one more film,
François Villiers's
Jusqu'au
bout du monde, ten years later). Despite his presence in
almost thirty films over the preceding two decades, Tino Rossi rarely
impressed as an actor and in his later years he was content merely to
fall back on his own amiable persona, with scripts fashioned
accordingly. This is partly why Rossi's later films have little
to distinguish them - they essentially repeat the same formula
consisting of a hackneyed and often schmaltzy piece of melodrama
interspersed with musical interludes intended to exploit Rossi's real
talent as much as possible. Suffice it to say that the only value
Rossi brings to
Tourments is
in its musical numbers, which include
Bella
donna and
Soir Espagnol.
The plot is mostly a lazy reworking of what has gone before and Rossi's
acting is as wooden and anaemic as ever.
After directing Tino Rossi in
Son dernier Noël (1952),
Jacques Daniel-Norman had the privilege of directing him in
Tourments, which was not only
Rossi's last big film but also the last notable film made by its
director. Like his star's, Daniel-Norman's credits stretched
back to the early 1930s, and included the melodrama
Le Briseur de chaînes
(1941) and comedy
L'Aventure est au coin de la rue
(1944). It's hard to find a film in Daniel-Norman's filmography
that has stood the test of time - in fact most of his work today looks
unbearably trite and dated. Without Rossi's star presence,
Tourments would have been just
another bland and forgettable melodrama - at least it would have been
were it not for one other essential ingredient: Louis de
Funès. What de Funès does to this film is
nothing less than a miraculous one-man salvage operation.
Even as late as the mid-1950s, in spite of having appeared in over
seventy films, Louis de Funès was still a virtually unknown
commodity, rarely cast in much more than a small supporting role or
notable walk-on part, although his talents as a comic performer were
recognised and well-utilised by many of the directors he worked
with. In
Tourments this future king
of comedy gets a more substantial role than was typical in this early
phase of his career, and he positively revels in the opportunity to
play a fully developed character. In the unscrupulous private
detective Eddy Gorlier we at once recognise the kind of malicious but
oddly likeable imp on which de Funès's later comedy persona
would be based. Firing on all cylinders, and with apparently
nothing to stop him from stealing the film, de Funès asserts his
presence right at the start when we see the outcome of a violent (off-camera) run-in
with M. Rossi. The comedy black-eye inevitably gives way to a
comedy pirate patch, and so, little by little, de Funès rips the
film from Rossi's lethargic grasp until it is almost entirely his
own. As one screen career withers and dies, another is bursting
into life. Being biffed by Tino Rossi was just about the best
thing that could have happened to Louis de Funès.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
Known to the world as Tony Caylor, Jacques Duffot surprised everyone
when he chose to give up his high-profile singing career so that he
could devote himself to his wife, Anne-Marie. After adopting a
little boy, Jean-Claude, the couple could hardly be happier.
Then, one day, the boy's biological mother, Simone, turns up out of the
blue and enlists the help of private detective Eddy Gorlier in an
attempt to regain custody of her child. Suspecting that
Jean-Claude may be the result of a previous liaison between her husband
and another woman, Anne-Marie hires Gorlier to look into the
matter. The calculating Gorlier at once sees a way by which
Simone's maternal ambitions can be satisfied. All he has to do is
to wreck Jacques's marriage to Anne-Marie so that the adopted child
will no longer have a stable home and can be returned to his real
mother. The plan goes awry when, traumatised by his parents'
separation, Jean-Claude runs away from home...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.