A lesser-known work by Jean "Grand Illusion" Renoir (who was the son of that Renoir - did you know?), this one is slight but interesting. It takes a while to get going (at least, for me) but the last half hour canters by, and it features one of the more hateable characters you'll come across. It's billed as a light, fluffy comedy, but what with themes of sexual abuse, murder and a stillbirth that's regarded as fortunate and swiftly recovered-from, that's a stretch, even for the French. Apparently the script was by Jacques Prévert, who is a well-known poet in France, but whom I know only as the writer of Les Enfant du Paradis, and one can certainly see the similarities. But it's also an overtly socialist/communist work, and Renoir said it lead to the French Communists recruiting him to make anti-fascist propaganda, which in turn put him in danger when the Nazis invaded.
Anyway, it's one of those "bookend" films, that starts with a huge car dropping off a couple at a small country inn that's "just across the dunes from the border". They as for a room in the bar, where the man is recognized from the paper as someone wanted for murder (we get to the titular crime pretty fast, as you can see). He collapses asleep on the bed, but as the room is right next to the bar, the woman can hear the patrons discussing whether or not they should turn him in. She comes out and admits that he did indeed commit the murder of which he is accused, and says if, after you hear our story, you still want to turn us in, go ahead. Cut to flashback...
The bulk of the film is in and around a newspaper/magazine publishing business. It's not exactly highbrow, and M. Lange contributes small items, but in his spare time he writes stories about Arizona Jim (so that's where Spielberg/Lucas got the idea) and his adventures in the Wild West (a map of which he has on his wall, but of course he's never been). He takes them to the head of the company, the loathsome Batala (a bravura performance of charming monstrous self-interest by Jules Berry, who looks sleazy), who laughs them off. But Batala, besides shagging every woman who crosses his path,
has also cut all kinds of deals with various businesses to start magazines that advertise their products and so forth, only to spend the money on anything but paying his downtrodden workers. The first part of the movie (which I would probably enjoy a lot more on a re-watch) just sets up the wide array of players, from the kindly, sassy blonde Valentine, who has clawed her way up to owning a laundry (it is implied she was a lady of the street before, but she's very much a mother hen to all her girls),
and who has history with Batala that's she's keen not to repeat, and has her eye on the shy, dreamy Lange (it is she who is telling the story), to the boastful bicycle delivery boy (who breaks his leg, to the grim satisfaction of the old soldier busibody who seems to be the super for the apartments that everyone lives in) and the girl who loves him and whom he loves,
and whom he forgives for having Batala's bastard (only phew! it dies in childbirth), along with many others. After doing enough to make us despise him, Batala figures that he's about to get arrested because he keeps getting visited by a persistent "inspector". So he heads out of Paris on a train, on which he gets into a conversation with a priest, noting that nobody suspects anyone dressed like that. Cut to news reports about the train derailing, and among the victims the publisher Batala. (Lesser noted is the report that several passengers, including a priest, are missing.) The creditors close in and the employees are at a loss, until Lange suggests they form a cooperative.
This is enthusiastically supported by a new arrival, a Bertie Wooster-like scion of one of Batala's main business creditors, whose father is too ill to come, and who only seems to support the idea because he doesn't know what "cooperative" means. It's also supported by the "inspector," whom, we discover, is a relative of Batala's who's a retired inspector and just wants a job, "a little one."
As you can imagine, the newspaper takes off, centered round the Arizona Jim stories
(which are already fairly popular, except that Batala kept inserting ads for various quack remedies into the text, to Lange's outrage (although that was the favorite part of the stories for the Bertie Wooster character)). This in turn alerts the very-much-alive-and-dressed-as-a-Priest Batala, when he visits a news stand
and is told that the stories sell like hot cakes. He decides to return, and shows up in the offices the night of a New Years' celebration by all the employees where he is discovered by Lange, who has had an idea for the plot of the Arizona Jim film that people are clamoring to make, and goes upstairs from the merry throng to start writing. Batala announces that he's back to take control of everything, and go back to launching his pet vanity project, which nobody but him likes. But while there he reveals that he had a secret gun in the drawer of his desk that nobody had found...
After Lange shoots him, he's sort of in a daze, but Valentine keeps her head, and actually Bertie (not his real name) says sensibly, "well, if I'd killed anyone, I'd go on the run. I'll drive you!" and they all head off to the opening scene. (Jami and I both felt frustrated that they hadn't exploited the fact that everybody thinks Batala's already dead! Just strip off the priest outfit and shove him in the river.) Cut to the bookend, and Valentine has finished her story and awaits the pub crowd's verdict. "Well, it's obvious what we must do," says one...
This film is definitely due a revival, what with all the obnoxious tech barons milling around and a new-found fondness in the youth for anti-capitalist ideas. Maybe Luigi Mangione was inspired by it, who knows.
No comments:
Post a Comment