The Chauffeur Always Honks Twice

RETOUR DE MANIVELLE is a French adaptation of a James Hadley Chase novel — apart from changing a few names, esteemed scenarist Michel Audiard doesn’t seem to have Europeanized it much, even leaving rich drunk Peter Van Eyck’s Cadillac unchanged. Even in French, the origins of Chase’s story are obvious enough — the James M. Cain “love rack” structure, in which a wild love affair is used as motor for an escalating suspense thriller. But Chase has come up with some ideas of his own, including an insurance scam involving the triangle of unwanted husband, scheming wife and dopey hero which DOESN’T actually include a murder. That *is* unusual.

Without getting into second act spoilers, I can say that Van Eyck devises an improbably scheme to torment his cheating wife — he blows his brains out, leaving a vast insurance policy which doesn’t come into effect until the following day, and which specifically excludes suicide, So, in order to claim, icy hotwife Michele Morgan and horny chauffeur Daniel Gelin have to conceal the death, preserve the body, and then fake the suicide to look like murder (no chance of making the bullet to the skull look like an accident). This is complicated by sweet young Michele Mercier and third-act detective inspector Bernard Blier, who is awfully good value. His smart working cop has a clever answer for every occasion, but is continually led up the garden path by all the manufactured evidence strewn in his way, with ultimately black irony. Gelin, who I mainly knew as the young lover in LA RONDE (and for being Maria Schneider’s estranged father), is very effective in  tougher role.

But it’s Morgan’s film — she excels at coldbloodedness, as she always does, but what really chills the marrow is when she acts sweet — because she plays it so convincingly, despite our knowing it’s all fake. She could give Robin Wright lessons in House of Cards, which is saying a great deal. She’s accompanied by a sculpted torso, a gleaming reminder of how the men in her life have objectified her, and is able to make the character both terrifying and, in a feminist light, sympathetic or at least understandable.

Unfortunately, as far as I could tell the plot ceases to make sense in the third act. Given the improbable set-up (“We are not concerned with whether the thing WOULD be done, only if it COULD be done,” said fictional detective Dr. Gideon Fell), everything has been just about plausible until then, so it’s a shame. But it does deliver us into the right emotional place, which counts for plenty.

Directed by Denis de la Patilliere, with some low-key sexual frankness, expressive use of depopulated frames and a relish for the white, palatial and underfurnished mansion where most of the intrigue takes place. He had a long life and career and was predictably loathed by the Nouvelle Vague.

 

George Cockstone

Now that I have your attention…

The film is DR MABUSE VS SCOTLAND YARD — at one point it looks as if it’s going to be, thrillingly, DR MABUSE VS SCOTLAND, as the criminal super-genius is reported to be heading north of the border, but he’s only fooling, and most of the action takes place around a wonderfully touristic German version of London. “Princess Diana” is kidnapped. A bevvy of bobbies are brainwashed. And electronics criminal “George Cockstone” is recruited as Dr. Mabuse’s right-hand man.

Peter Van Eyck, who plays various roles in various of Artur Brauner’s MABUSE sequels — he’s a millionaire industrialist in Fritz Lang’s THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR MABUSE, which kickstarted the whole 60s cycle — plays a British policeman whose old mum does most of his case-solving.

Highly recommended twaddle.

Meanwhile — I’m off to the Rotterdam International Film Festival with NATAN (see you there?) for three days and then off to London for two days, also with NATAN — it screens at the Curzon Soho on Saturday afternoon (see you there?). Hope you enjoyed Lewis Milestone Week+. I may have the odd bit more to say about the old fellow, but not for a little while now.

(Flight isn’t until 6, so I’ll probably be online to respond to comments.)

Aaaand — I was forgetting — BIG article by me, part 1, at Mostly Film — THE MAKING OF NATAN.

William Cameron Menzies is out of his mind

…in a nice way, of course.

It’s easy to see why, in the face of all the evidence, people always assumed INVADERS FROM MARS was shot in 3D. Menzies’ particular way with deep focus and forced-perspective sets, coupled with extreme angles and discombobulating editing, make his films seem like 3D extravaganzas even when they’re not. Or rather, like 3D extravaganzas viewed under the influence of certain psychoactive  mushrooms.

(WCM did make a proper 3D film, the Scottish-set monsterpiece THE MAZE, whose plot synopsis, were I to attempt writing one, would surely melt your minds and cause them to flow down the backs of your necks. So I won’t do it, OK?)

ADDRESS UNKNOWN is a striking bit of wartime agit-prop, with an epistolary narrative that seems designed to defeat dramatization. But Menzies, unperturbed, just spews deep, off-kilter compositions all over the screen and makes us like it. Every minute or so there’s another “WOW” moment, and sometimes they follow directly on top of each other until you feel like tiny bombs are detonating in your frontal lobes.

It’s PVE!

Against all this, Paul Lukas and Peter Van Eyck both do pretty well at holding the eye where it belongs, when our natural response is often to go skittering off around the edges of the frame, looking for rational angles. Lukas, a really terrific actor, is especially fine, humanizing a monstrous character without asking for sympathy. His is a bad guy activated by weakness rather than malice, but weakness is next door to wickedness in the dyslexic dictionary of vice.

A real 3D moment, as Nazis come bursting through the screen at us!

I’m thinking that I’ve overestimated Sam Wood as director, because his terrific IVY, produced and designed by Menzies, bears all the visual hallmarks of this film, and none of Wood’s other work (apart from those Menzies designed). Still, Wood did have good taste in scripts, and maybe more interest in performance than WCM.

This piece might have been longer, but as I was taking my time with it, David Bordwell posted an awesome essay/history/appreciation of The Great Man. I’m thrilled to be a footnote in it, referencing my review of IVY. I’d urge you all to read it, and of course bookmark DB’s astounding blog if you somehow haven’t already.