Classe tous risques.

A new season of Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre’s Film Club began with a not particular well-known French gangster film from 1960. The host for the evening was our very own Brendan Kearney who opened the proceedings with a short, but informative introduction.

Brendan informed the audience that the brilliance of Classe tous risques (1960), known as The Big Risk in America, was down to three men. Firstly the director Claude Sautet, again not very well known outside his native France which is surprising considering that he not only directed 15 films between 1951 and 1995 but also was assistant director on 14 films including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face in 1959 and has 29 films to his credit as a screenwriter. The second big influence on the film was Jose Giovanni a French/Swiss writer who’s novel Sautet adapted for the screen. Giovanni was a former criminal who was sentenced to death in 1948 for his part in the death of three people narrowly escaping the guillotine when his sentence was commuted to twenty years of hard labour, released in 1956 he was pardoned in 1986. Giovanni’s experiences in prison lead him to write a series of novels. The first novel was published in 1957 and was called Le trou (The Hole). It tells of the escape he attempted from prison with other inmates in 1947this was also made into a film directed by Jacques Becker. While incarcerated he met a vicious gangster called Abel Damos who was waiting a death sentence passed in his absence during the years he spent as a fugitive in Italy with his wife and sons. It was this character who inspired Giovanni to write a further book in 1958 called Classe tous risques changing the main characters name to Abel Davos. The third person and probable the most important is the movies leading man, Lino Ventura, an Italian who made over 70 films in a 33 year period working with such world renowned directors as Claude Lelouch, Jean-Pierre Melville, Gerard Pires, Vittorio De Sica and Louis Malle to name but a few. Ventura was a big man, a wrestler as a youth and the epitome of a French gangster, ideally cast as Abel Davos.

 

Lino Ventura, the epitome of a gangster.

Davos know that he cannot stop in Italy any longer, he is a wanted man and he knew its only time before the Polizia catch up with him. Putting his wife Therese and two boys on a train to get them across the French border, Abel and his partner Raymond plan to rob a bank messenger in broad daylight and then drive to meet wife and kids. But the robbery does not go to plan and the police are soon on their trail engaging our fearless gangsters in a gun battle.  Eventually meeting up with Therese and the boys, Pierrot and Daniel, they hire a boat to get them to Nice. When they land on the shore the local border petrol are laying in wait, another gun battle but this time our travellers do not get away scot-free. Davos contacts his old buddy’s in Paris to come and collect him but instead of coming them selves they send a stranger in the form of Eric Stark which Davos takes as disrespect and can’t wait to meet up with his so called comrades.

 

Abel Davos and Raymond.

Davos with Eric Stark.

Also featured in this movie is an early appearance by Jean-Paul Belmondo whose next film A bout de soufflé (1960) was to make him one of the biggest icon’s in French cinema and one of the actors most closely associated with its New Wave. Ironically enough it was this film that kept Classe tous risques off of the French cinema screens at that time. Italian actress Sandra Milo, who is probably best known for her award winning appearances in two of Fellini’s best known films, plays Liliane, Eric Starks love interest. Davos friend and partner in crime Raymond is played by Stan Krol[1] another tough looking gangster type who shared a prison cell with Giovanni.

 

Sandra Milo plays Starks love interest.

This black and white gangster movie has been re-released as part of a BFI season of films dedicated to its director and as usual the RBC has given its audience a chance to see a rare provincial screening of this absorbing thriller something most local filmgoers may not ever get the chance to see on a big screen. It’s an action movie with minimal dialogue and strong themes of friendship and betrayal. Nothing as  ‘glamorous’ as today’s Hollywood gangster movie, more like the Hollywood genre, which was given a French name Film Noir whose heyday lasted from the early 40’s to the late 50’s and is still held in high esteem.  The added dimension of the two young boys, the superb character studies of the main characters, the location shooting in Milan, Nice and Paris and the on screen presence of Lino Ventura makes this one of the highlights of French cinema of that period and stands up extremely well against such classics as Bande a part (1964) and Lift to the Scaffold (1958) as well as afore mentioned A bout de soufflé.

No one disrepects Abel Davos! 

---

[1] Krol, who’s real name was Stan Divic, was from Polish extraction.

Madame de…

Madame de....

‘Madame de… was a most elegant lady, distinguished, and received everywhere. She seemed destined to a delightful untroubled existence. Doubtless nothing would have happened, but for the jewels’. This wee paragraph appears on screen, as the film is about to start. The jewels in question are a pair of diamond earrings, a wedding present from her husband Andre, which she sells without his knowledge to cover debts she has accrued due to her lavish spending. When the jeweller informs the General he buys them back and gives them as a farewell gift to his mistress. She travels to Constantinople and relinquishes them to her gambling debts. Its there that the Baron Fabrizio Donati purchases the earrings and at the same time meets Louise, Madame de, and the pair fall dangerously in love. Donati gives them as a present to Louise who then returns to France.  

 

Louise and Andre.

Louise and Donati.

It’s these two pieces of jewellery that form the substance of Max Ophuls love story. To Louise they are a token of her love for Donati, to Andre, the General; they are a token of his possession and power he welds over his wife. But Ophuls is not judgemental, leaving the audience to consider the French countesses   emotional journey along the diseased road that can be love. ‘The camera exists to create a new art – to show what can be seen elsewhere, neither in theatre nor in life’.[1] Ophuls statement could not be truer than in Madame de… (1953) his penultimate film before his death in 1957, one in which he directing his polished cast with the hand of a master. The bond between him and his actors is so obvious especially with Danielle Darrieux, the heart of the film, who plays the frivolous Parisian woman to perfection, Charles Boyer is every inch the 19^th century French General with Vittorio De Sica portraying the suave international Diplomat. Its also pretty obvious that Christain Matras camera work is in love with the actors, when the couple dance, your on the dance floor breathing down their sophisticated necks, but what makes it even more interesting is that Matras does not rely on the obvious shot and his framing is absolutely exceptional enticing us, the audience, in as though we are scrutinising a painting. The whole shoot flows and ebbs like a Strauss Waltz with the director appreciating that music plays such great part in this adaptation from Louise Leveque de Vilmorin’s period novel. Recently released on a flawless new print that emphasises what a true cinematic classic Max Ophuls penultimate film actually is.

 

Danielle Darrieux with her co stars.

---

[1] Max Ophuls

Spirits of the Dead (Histoires Extraordinaires)

This French/Italian co-production is a portmanteau movie with three short films based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe, an American author best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre.  An outstanding European director directs each one.

In Tim Lucas notes that accompany the 2011 release of the film on Blu-ray he opines that Histoires Extraordinaires (1968) ‘reinvented the cinema’s approach to Poe, and ultimately, the boundaries of the horror genre itself. Vincent Price was nowhere in sight; instead the films creators used the opportunity to reach back to an older, European tradition of using Poe as the basis of delirious, experimental, confessional cinema’[1]. He also argues that the three should be seen as a whole and not as individual films, and I would concur that the three films are certainly better enjoyed as a whole.

Roger Vadim’s (And God Created Woman 1956) Metzengerstein is the mesmerising first segment not set in any particular time span and stars his wife of the time Jane Fonda in a part that reinforces the fact that she was a strikingly beautiful and desirable actress.  In this wonderfully costumed drama Jane plays a character that Poe had cast as a 18 year old male in his original story but in Vadim’s screenplay she is a young women, the Countesse Frederique von Metzengerstain who has inherited the family estate and lives a life of promiscuity and debauchery, a sort of existence that Caligula would have been proud of. Her ancestors have always been rivals with another part of family called the Berlifitzings and who still it impossible to even talk with each other. One day while out in the forest hunting Frederique’s leg gets caught in a bear trap and fortunately her cousin Baron Wilhelm Berlifitzing is also out riding and frees her. The Countesse craves an incestuous relationship with the good-looking young Baron, who is played by Jane’s brother Peter, which does add an edge to the screen portrayal, but he rejects her. Frederique decides to extract revenge on the man that had the audacity to turn down her advances. Her actions lead to a death, a reincarnation and a mystifying incident with a black horse and a damaged tapestry. Partly spoken partly narrated the movie is lushly photographed by Claude Renoir especially the opening scene where we see the Countesse and her entourage riding on the cliffs above Kerouzere Castle in Brittany and I’ve already mentioned the fabulous futuristic costumes designed by Jacques Fonteray.  Is your fate predetermined?

 The Countesse Frederique von Metzengerstain

The penultimate segment is an intriguing piece of work directed by the French director Louis Malle (Lift to the Scaffold 1958) and is set in 19th century France and told in flashback. Atheist William Wilson, played by French heartthrob Alain Delon, enters a church and forces his way into the confessional demanding that the priest take his confession. The Malle co-scripted film tells the story of a cold-hearted sadist who claims he is being pursued by a doppelgänger who goes by the same name, William Wilson! One of his flashbacks involves a card game with a beautiful cigar smoking woman Giuseppina, a man in Poe's original story, but there's no mistaking Brigitte Bardot even with black hair. After an all night card session she eventually looses to Wilson who ends up whipping her after the other Wilson has appeared and accused him of cheating at cards. The ultimate nightmare is indeed a nightmare about a nightmare?

The cigar smoking Giuseppina.

William Wilson!

Like William Wilson in the previous segment Toby Dammit is a gambling man but unlike Wilson his bet is always with the devil with whom he wagers his head! Inspired by Mario Bava's devil in Kill Baby Kill (1966) the apparition takes the form of a young girl with white blond hair wearing a simple white dress holding a luminous ball that she bounces towards him in slow motion. This final segment was originally to be directed by Orson Wells who pulled out at the last minute to direct an uncompleted project in Yugoslavia. Instead Federico Fellini was asked to direct in his place. Fellini decided on a Poe story called Never Bet the Devil Your Head, set it in a contemporary setting, which as Tim Lucas points out was transformed into 'a bizarre, acid tinged, three ringed circus - the closest the cinema has come to bring Peter Blake's amazing Sgt Peppers album cover to life'[2] And who better to play a bizarre acid tinged character than Terence Stamp. Dammit is a famous actor who is loosing his career to the ravages of alcohol and drugs but is still convinced of his own celebrity status and agrees to travel to Rome to appear in a film where his fee is to be a brand new Ferrari. A guest of honor at a film award evening he drinks too much and has visions of a young girl holding a large luminous ball that ultimately leads to him completely loosing his head. He blew his mind out in a car[3].  

 

Toby Dammit.

Although all three work very well, Fellini’s segment is the most surreal of the three films and probably the best known. Similarities between the three are purely coincidental but what we get is a great example of sixties European film making from some of the eras best directors and best known actors and actresses. The original film made its theatrical debut in Paris in 1968 but did not do remarkably well in the box office. American International Pictures bought the distribution rights for the US, changed its name to Spirits of the Dead and released it in July 1969,it was the first horror movie released in America to carry an ‘R’ rating. This collectively splendid piece of cinematic film history will not immediately appeal to every one but if, like me, you are prepared to give it a go you will be justifiably rewarded in this world if not the next!

Never bet the devil your head!

                                                                              

---

[1] Tim Lucas Blu-ray Booklet 2011.

[2] Tim Lucas Blu-ray Booklet 2011.

[3] A Day in the Life 1967. Beatles Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Eva.

No one could smoke a cigarette like Jeanne Moreau!

During his self imposed professional exile in Britain Joseph Losey made some truly great films and was one of the few ‘foreign’ directors to receive serious critical attention. One of the not so quite so well known films made during the 1960’s, his most fruitful period, was the European art film Eva (1962)[1] which consisted of a very cosmopolitan cast and crew. It was made in Italy, based on a novel of the same name by English writer James Hadley Chase, directed by an American with French producers and starred French, British and Italian actors. 

A Welsh novelist Tyvian Jones, played by a very intense Stanley Baker, has a best selling novel which has been adapted into a well received movie, a house in Venice and a flat in Rome and a beautiful Italian fiancée Francesca Ferrara, the award winning actress Virna Lisa best known for her award winning part in La Reine Margot (1994). But all is not well, his film director is also in love with Francesca and is having the Welshman investigated hoping to find something that will discredit him in the eyes of wife-to-be. In the mean time Tyvian is tasked with writing another story hopefully to be adapted into a further hit movie. To this end he goes to his secluded house on an island near Venice. Arriving there late at night he finds that two people have broken in and have made themselves at home. The man is ejected but when he finds the second person, a woman, naked in his bath he allows her to stay. Attempting to seduce her she knocks him out with an ashtray and it’s this bump on the head that begins his dangerous fixation with Eva Oliver.

Moreau with Stanley Baker.

French actress Jeanne Moreau (Lift to the Scaffold (1958) Querelle (1982)) plays the femme fatale Eva an emotionless seductress ‘who never gives herself, only sells herself,’[2] simply interested in what she can get out of the men she seduces, a sort of high class call girl without the obligatory pimp.  The affair between the novelist and the money grabbing Eva starts as an infatuation but turns into an obsession which completely turns Tyvian’s world upside down humiliating him in front of friends and colleagues and leading to a terrible tragedy. 

Made in black and white on location in Italy in the winter months with no visible sign of tourists anywhere. It’s typical 1960’s art house film noir with long flowing camera shots from cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo and its requisite monochrome atmospherics with unlikable characters that barely break a smile. Baker gives his normal fraught performance, but to be fair no one can smoke a cigarette or say a line like ‘bloody Welshman’ quite like Ms Moreau and it’s soundtrack does include Billie Holiday!   

The beautiful Virna Lisi.

---

[1] Originally, this subject was offered by the Hakim brothers, who produced it, to Jean-Luc Godard to direct. Godard was anxious to sign Richard Burton for the leading role, but failed and then dropped out of the project. The Hakims instead obtained the services of another Welsh actor, Stanley Baker, who insisted on them hiring his friend Joseph Losey to direct. (IMDb Trivia)

[2] Quote from the Film’s Trailer.