Double Double Cross

PIEGE POUR CENDRILLON — A TRAP FOR CINDERELLA — Sebastien Japrisot’s twisty thriller adapted by Jean Anouilh and directed by Andre Cayatte — is very interesting.

Dany Carrel excels in, effectively, a triple role. She plays cousins — one rich one poor — there’s been a fire — the poor one is dead, the rich one is recovering from surgery, and amnesiac. Now, we’ve seen some plot twists, between us, so we start suspecting early on. Could it be…? Japrisot is ahead of us, he has further twists stacked up, waiting to land. Distracted by our smugness, we fall into his trap.

Carrel was typically cast as a sexpot gamine, her trademark move, like ROCKY HORROR’s Little Nell, was to pop out of her top. But she was always good, and could be REALLY good, as she is here, distinguishing three roles, particularly the most sympathetic, the post-op burns victim, hands in white cotton gloves, fingers curled. A very good physical performance, but her eyes seal the deal.

Playing the two schemers, she resorts to her sexy bag of tricks. Playing the survivor, rendered innocent by memory loss, she’s liberated by no longer having to worry about being cute or sexy. She’s like a newly-landed alien or angel.

The b&w cinematography of Armand Thirard (like Carrel, a Clouzot favourite, though for different reasons) is lambent, sharp, clinical. And there’s quite an extraordinary score by Louiguy: murmurous, muffled, distant, like a memory you can’t quite recover.

Cayatte was old-school, but this is 1965 and he’s clearly been paying attention. Jumps into flashback are accomplished by straight cutting. Amusingly, the clinic where Carrel recuperates has design echoes of MARIENBAD — the perfect place to get your memory back, or maybe someone else’s.

Cayatte hands the splitscreen and other tricks with aplomb — the cousins’ first meeting is a shot/reverse-shot with a garage elevator — Carrel#1 filmed in a pan from the elevator, through the gridwork, Carrel#2 with a high-angle circular move. It’s so stylish it distracts from the illusion being sold. By the time the two girls do appear in the same frame, we more or less believe they’re both there, and the director has a bunch of alternatives to the usual 50/50 vertical split shot:

The success of LES DIABOLIQUES has obviously prompted this one, but it has more humanity. I do find humanity in Clouzot, but LD is too concerned with constructing a trap for its audience to really attain consistent empathy — or, at any rate, the final outcome is nasty and sly rather than emotional. Here, the tricks ultimately bring us to a response richer than just “ah-hah!”

Last Night Inferno

Just back from Edgar Wright’s LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, which is good. Worth seeing, I think. Fiona wants to co-write something about it, but I just want to say I appreciated the Clouzot INFERNO borrowings and shout-out — the club called INFERNO works as an Argento reference, of course, which is how most will read it, but really it’s tip of the hat in thanks for the sparkles, though at no point in the proceedings does Dany Carrel or anyone else attempt carnal knowledge of a Slinky™.

Watch Your Stepfather

Finally got around to THE STEPFATHER (1987), scripted by my beloved Donald E. Westlake. Although I had to make do with a rather crummy 4:3 DVD with a smeary image which made the film look even cheaper than it was.

That cheapness doesn’t have any negative impact on the visuals, but the synth score is intermittently a bother. Since the whole film aims for a HALLOWEEN look (suburban autumn — it’s an unavoidable connection), a score that was unapologetically electro could work, but this is one of those synth tracks that keeps trying to remind us of PSYCHO. Synth strings = ugh. I’ve been guilty of using them myself, I admit. Never again. All real violin in my last one.

Seems like this was a career high for a lot of those involved, people who by rights should have gone on to even better things: director Joseph Rubin is more than efficient, he conjures all the necessary suspense and moves the camera smartly and gracefully. I haven’t seen his later films, which look kind of… commercial? I should give them a try. Where to start? (And why didn’t he immediately make more films with Westlake? Maybe he tried.)

Oh, I have to admit, the interiors are a little… smoky. Well, it’s the eighties. But it’s PARTICULARLY noticable here that this lighting effect has no naturalistic reason to exist. Deduct points.

Westlake knew he had to do this film when the story was pitched to him and the central serial killer turned out to be doing something that Westlake’s own father did: leaving his job but not telling his family, going in “to work” every day but in reality looking for new employment. With Westlake Sr. the explanation was more innocent: he was laid off during the depression and was too ashamed to tell his wife. The Stepfather is just getting ready to move on to a new town and start a new family, as soon as he’s gotten rid of the old one, which isn’t working out for him…

Jill Schoelen is a great final girl, convincing as a teenager despite being around 24. Westlake writes shamelessly corny teenage stuff that feels REAL and is beautifully played. Then there’s the dependable Shelley Hack, so good in KING OF COMEDY. And Terry O’Quinn is just perfect as the psycho stepdad, taking some very well-crafted creepy stuff right to the edge. A lot of his choices — banality of evil cornpone — are risky, and wouldn’t work with another actor, but are just right for him. And while finding too much sympathy for this character would be plain wrong, you get the clear sense that this is not a happy man. His murders are part of his own disintegrating personality. “Waaiit a minute.. who am I here?” is a chilling moment.

All the actors are good, and the ones who have a B-movie blandness or else a lack of charisma are in fact perfect for their assigned roles. The movie has both an Arbogast AND an O’Halloran, characters who might be expected to show up and sort things out, but are instead taken out of the picture by the wily psycho.

Westlake’s skill at piling problems together to make suspenseful crises is much in evidence, and he knows his genre and can stretch it — on a couple of occasions, predictability is shortcircuited by outbursts of excessive violence, which is a wholly genre-appropriate way to keep things moveing and edgy. The small roles are well written (Westlake loved old movies and could channel their ability to sketch a memorable characterisation in moments) and both logic and good sense get their due. It’s a crying shame he didn’t write more movies that got made, and that so many of the adaptations are guff.

Guess it’s time I rewatched THE GRIFTERS, which allows us to see his response to Jim Thompson. His response to Patricia Highsmith, RIPLEY UNDERGROUND (a weird book with great scenes but ridiculous plotting) got rewritten, but I’m still curious to see it. Then there’s the enjoyable COPS AND ROBBERS (directed by the underrated Aram Avakian) and then there’s HOT STUFF and WHY ME? about which I have my doubts, but what the hell. I recently watched HERBIE GOES TO MONTE CARLO so I can’t really turn my nose up at them in advance.

And LE COMMISSAIRE MENE L’ENQUETE appears to be completely unavailable, with or without subtitles. Stars Dany Carrel. Be still, my beating heart. Well, LE COUPERET is the best film adaptation of Westlake, so one can say that he had some good luck in France (though it’s questionable if MADE IN USA even counts as a Westlake adaptation…)

Guidance from the experts?