You can imagine Alfred Hitchcock himself grinning with glee as he watched Henri Georges Clouzet’s masterful psychological mystery unfolding before his eyes for the first time – and subsequently itching to incorporate a few of the legendary French director’s subtle techniques of manipulation into his own later films.
From a relatively simple set-up, Clouzot – who made the equally famous Wages of Fear two years prior in 1953 – turns the screws on his protagonists whilst toying with the preconceptions of his helplessly captivated audience. The setting is a Parisian boarding school where the headmaster Michel Delasalle (Paul Meurisse) is a real bastard, a cold-hearted dictator and ruthless womanizer who mistreats both his fragile wife Christina (wife of the director, Vera Clouzot) and his mistress, also a member of staff, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret).
Surprisingly the women are friends and secretly they concoct a plan to rid themselves of Michel's tyrannical presence once and for all. Though united by their misery and fantasies of freedom, the women are nonetheless polar opposites: Christina is a former nun with strong religious convictions, conflicted on a deep, fundamental level by the prospect of becoming entangled in murder most foul despite her long-suffering status; Nicole, on the other hand, is staunch and aloof, more overtly possessed of the cold calculation to perform a task she feels they must undertake to cleanse their lives of Michel’s influence.
Christina plays along with Nicole’s master plan of luring Michel from Paris to a remote place, unconvinced that she can actually follow through with the deed. It all works to perfection however, and horrified by what she’s done, Christina assists in sneaking the body back to the boarding school before dumping it into the murky depths of the unused swimming pool where they hope for its inadvertent discovery by a student.
Michele (Paul Meurisse) with mistress Nicole (Simone Signoret)
Clouzet manipulates this scenario with a delicate hand as a series of suspenseful moments ensue, the women paralysed with anticipation as the moment of discovery seemingly nears. Before long the pool is drained according to their own frantic directive – more as a means of putting an end to their anxiety once and for all – and from here the real fun begins!
An unexpected sight is waiting at the bottom of the now waterless pit and the sight of a fainting Christina signals the escalation of the mystery as Clouzot ensures his female protagonists are frazzled by the inexplicable contradictions, uneasily lurching from one possibility to another in trying to uncover the truth. With unexpected revelations spun like a web around the central narrative, fraying the women’s nerves with every new twist, there’s the implication of an almost supernatural force at work.
Christina (Vera Clouzot) testing the poison with Nicole
All three leads give superlative performances, the cold-eyed evaluations of Signoret matched by the unraveling fragility of Clouzot as the fatalistic wife with the weak heart, convinced it can only end one way, declaring “we’re monsters, and God doesn’t like monsters.” Meurisse, as the irredeemable headmaster, makes his mark too; you want him dead as much as the women in the earlier scenes. There’s also a neat supporting role in the second half for Charles Vanel as a leathery old retired detective whose nosiness and curiosity ensure he becomes a meaningful part of the action, complicating matters for all.
With it’s chilling final ten minutes - a countdown to the final twist, a deliriously fiendish denouement - the film ramps up suspense to an almost unbearable pitch. Though literally translated as The Devils, the title Les Diaboliques could be just as indicative of the diabolical seduction of Clouzot’s film, a template for dozens of mysteries to follow, though rarely, if ever, surpassed.
A sparkling combination of drama, fantasy and comedy, this archetypal Hollywood concoction from 1947 is one truly deserving of its decorated status. Arguably the finest achievement of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s stellar career, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir features the faultless casting of Gene Tierney as Lucy Muir, the lonely widower who becomes enamored of Rex Harrison’s ghostly sea captain, Daniel Gregg. Together they bring to vivid life the classy screenplay adaptation of R.A. Dick’s novel by Philip Dunne.
Lucy is looking for a new start one year after the death of her husband; desperate to separate herself from her in-laws she decides to give in to a lifelong calling of the seaside. She chooses Whitecliff and won’t be deterred by a jittery real estate agent from taking up residence in the supposedly haunted Gull Cottage.
Rather than fearing the prospect, Lucy is intrigued by its supernatural reputation; even disregarding the first booming cackle which marks the salty Captain’s initial appearance, she decides to move in, bringing her young daughter Anna (played by a 9-year old Natalie Wood) and housekeeper Martha (Edna Best) with her.
There’s friction at first between Lucy and Captain Gregg; she's upset by his brusque, confrontational manner, whilst he’s still peeved by his accidental demise, widely reported in the community as a suicide. The pair begins to see eye-to-eye after awhile however and their fascinating conversations take on greater significance as they discover common ground, mutual respect and even a strange cross-dimensional attraction of sorts.
Soon Gregg has a brainstorm and enlists her help to bring his ultimate project to fruition: he wants to dictate his colourful memoirs to Lucy, who he affectionately dubs 'Lucia', recollections of a spirited life spent roaming the high seas, which she will present to a publisher upon completion, taking full credit for.
Rex Harrison as the unforgettable Captain Gregg
The third piece of the equation is completed when, at the publisher's office, Lucy runs into children’s author, the suave and charming Miles Fairley (George Sanders) who’s immediately besotted by Lucy and begins to court her. This inspires the angry protestations of the jealous Captain who does all he can to dissuade her from falling for the wily manipulations of a man he labels “a perfumed parlour snake!”. Of course, Gregg denies any notion of jealousy, noting that it’s securely a “disease of the flesh.”
Torn between the corporeal and spiritual realms in what is one very strange love triangle, Lucy must decide where her future lies, a decision that seems surprisingly difficult given the paucity of realistic options. Mankiewicz’s almost flawless film survives the transition of years as the finale is reached, the ethereal fantasy of the final frames leaving an indelible imprint.
The gorgeous Tierney, a great but undervalued actress of her time (consider her equally unforgettable turns in both Laura and Leave Her to Heaven for starters) displays that perfect mix of strength and vulnerability here; Lucy is an intelligent but vulnerable character, thus craving our empathy, especially when she becomes a victim of heartless deceitfulness.
This is now my favourite Rex Harrison role; he’s unforgettable as Gregg, the indignant but decent Captain whose roughened voice and proclivity for colourful turns of phrase belies the romanticism stirring his own lonely heart. He has nearly all the best lines too, but the best is saved for his penultimate appearance, a stirring farewell monologue to the uneasily sleeping Lucy - an acknowledgement of how the only means of providing her with a chance at a real and rewarding life is to vanish forever and cease his relentless haunting.
The Captain and Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney)
Two further monumental creative forces cinch the film’s greatness: composer Bernard Herrmann whose glorious score combines glittering embellishments of his main thematic material with hypnotic mysterioso writing for the early scenes prior to Gregg's substantiation; his love theme is a pearler and atypical for him in a career steeped in the psychological probing, through bleak atonalities, of tortured characters.
Then there’s the exemplary work of cinematographer Charles Lang, one of great artisans of his chosen field. Anyone who’s witnessed the magic he conjured with light and shade in films such as The Uninvited, Ace in the Hole, Sabrina, and Some Like it Hot, will know what to expect here; he uses an eerie confluence of artificial and candlelight to convey mood and tension and a series of meticulously crafted interiors to compliment stunning backdrops of the seaside, often evocatively shown at night.
This magnificent film with its intelligent, literate screenplay, full of whimsy and witty humour, is a delight from first frame to last. An artistic highpoint for all concerned it hasn’t aged in any significant way, remaining a timeless fantasy, the perfect cinematic encapsulation of idealized love.
There’s perverse pleasure to be derived from this curiosity of a film, the story of a middle-aged woman who’s reduced to manually ‘servicing’ men in a sex club to pay for her deathly ill grandson’s potentially life-saving trip to Australia. Irina Palm was the surprise comedy of 2007; the only trouble is, its laughs are strictly unintentional for this is supposed to be a serious drama.
Maggie (Marianne Faithfull) is devestated by the dire predicament her son Tom (Kevin Bishop) and his wife Sarah (Siobhan Hewlett) face; their young son Ollie (Corey Burke) is dying of a terminal illness and the only new treatment available is far from their English home. They need to fly to Melbourne and fund the trip themselves, something which is out of the equation given their struggling economic status.
Strolling through Soho late at night, the doomsaying doctor’s words hanging over her head like a black cloud, she chances upon a job vacancy for a ‘hostess’ in a club called Sexy World. Desperate and curious, she investigates, only to be informed by club owner Miki (Miki Manojlovic) of the term’s strictly euphemistic nature. In passing, however, he takes careful note of her amazingly soft, pliable hands and brazenly suggests an alternate means of earning money.
Before long, the mortified Maggie is raking in the money, her reluctant success provoking long queues of men in wait to experience the fast but glorious pleasures the newly-monikered Irina Palm can offer with what Miki dubs “the best right hand in London”.
Miki (Miki Manojlovic) inspects those precious and valuable hands of Maggie (Marianne Faithfull)
Naturally, Maggie is embarrassed and shamed by her salacious new vocation, keeping it a secret from all. Her endeavours only hit a minor snag when her intensive sessions at the club cause her to be struck down by R.S.I, knowledgeably referred to by the club's regular doctor, and others in the business, as “penis elbow”.
There are many other pearls of rib-tickling hilarity to be found in German director Sam Garbarski’s misjudged and misguided film. The standout may be Maggie confiding to Miki the motivation for her pursuit of quick cash; referring to her grandson’s plight, she bemoans, ‘He’s dying, Miki……..he’s dying, I’m wanking, it’s a mess.” But it’s the screenplay, by Martin Herron and Philippe Blasband, in trying to plumb the depths of an elusive, non-existent profundity amidst this grimy, back-alley, fetishistic degeneracy, that’s the real mess.
The second rate acting by the support cast is a major hindrance too, coming to an inglorious head with indignant son Tom’s rant upon discovery of his mum’s financial source, declaring “there’s not enough soap in the world that can clean off what you’ve been doing!” Indeed. Or enough Liquid Paper to transform this spotty mess of a film into anything approaching the realms of believability. Faithfull’s limited manner of ‘acting’ is a sore point as well, her raspy voice and wooden performance epitomising her status as a contentious choice.
Lube, tissues and coffee - that's all 'Irina' needs to complete her valuable community service.
There’s a moral dilemma at the heart of this film, beyond the naked dancers and furious tugging at the glory hole: do you potentially save the life of a child with tainted money or allow him to live out his life surrounded by love and a reluctantly tamed conscience? It’s all so clumsily handled however and deprived of depth by its inane treatment.
Though quotable (for all the wrong reasons) and somehow watchable in a remotely bemusing way, Irina Palm is still not a film to brag about seeing to people who usually regard your opinions as even semi-valid. My excuse is that I only admit to it here as a legitimate means of offering a public service announcement to the film-viewing community.
Based on Toby Young’s bestseller about his days writing for Vanity Fair, this adaptation by debuting director Robert B. Weide turns out to be fairly tame stuff. The basic premise, of transplanting the main character, Sidney (Simon Pegg), from his lowly wannabe status in London’s entertainment hierarchy to a glamorous job writing for the New York based Sharps magazine, seems rife with fish-out-of-water possibilities, trading the objective cynicism of an outsider for laughs; undermining his unlikely rise to a view of greener pastures, however, is a weightless, incidental screenplay with all the dramatic force of a wall of marshmallows used as a battering ram
A meticulous, slow burn French drama about how our inevitable struggle with ghosts of the past continually shapes our present, first time writer and director Philippe Claudel's film unfurls its narrative with a steady and bleak acuity, allowing us access through the eyes of sisters Juliette (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and Lea (Elsa Zylberstein). There is a significant age between the pair who haven't seen one another for a decade, since the early years of Juliette’s incarceration for a crime that hangs heavily on her conscience and becomes a palpable force thwarting her chances of successful reintegration into the outside world.
Aloof and intellectually superior professor David Lurie (John Malkovich) has duel passions maintaining the impetus of his campus life: the poetry of the romantics and an affair with one of his young students. The latter will find an outlet into the outside world once the revengeful reproach of the girl's intervening friend alerts the powers that be of Lurie’s extracurricular assignations, with swift repercussions to follow. There will be a fall from grace, though it’s almost with relief that Lurie offers both mild repentance and a resignation from his Cape Town University.
As he makes tracks for his daughter’s remote rural property, a place constantly under the threat of siege from remorseless attackers, Steve Jacobs’ second film begins its soon-to-be grueling journey through the twisted landscape of a man’s wounded psyche in adapting J.M. Coetzee’s acclaimed novel.
A quartet of mathematicians is lured to a remote old building in the Spanish countryside by a tantalising invitation to share in an evening of challenging puzzles. Soon however, they’re engaged in a struggle to extricate themselves from a deadly game, locked in a room that slowly begins to shrink in direct proportion to their erroneous attempts at solving the puzzles.
Returning to your roots after a lengthy absence is never easy, fraught with possible complications of raising ghosts of the past from their resting places. In Eric Guirado’s The Grocer’s Son (2007), Antoine Sforza (Nicolas Cazale) is impelled by a sense of duty when his father suffers a heart attack, leaving a door open for his return to the family’s humble grocery, in the interim at least. It means abandoning a job as a waiter he hates anyway but confronting a man who has long considered his defection to Paris from their home in Provence a convenient escape route and personal affront.
Torn between conscience and duty, what is Fr. Michael Logan (Montgomery Clift) to do when the shadow of suspicion falls on him rather than the man who confessed to murder in his confessional? In Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess (1953), a tortuous inner struggle begins for the young priest, especially considering that the guilty man, Otto (O.E. Hasse) is a friend and worker in the rectory of his Quebec parish.
A film of beguiling simplicity, Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit (2007) is a moving ode to the craft of storytelling in the purest sense, exemplifying with every frame the old adage of how a picture is worth a thousand words.
When an Egyptian police band - the Alexandria Ceremonial Orchestra - mistakenly stumbles into the remote Israeli desert town of Bet Hatikva, they're marooned for 24 hours awaiting the next bus to perform at their original destination, Pet Hatikva.
Fascinating stuff Matt, you've opened up a new and very, very strange world to all of us I'm sure.
And as you promised, hilarious clip with accompanying lounge music!
Thanks Matt, I'm the other way round! Have only known of its imposing reputation but never actually seen Wages of Fear which I've had on VHS with 5 million other films for ages but never got around to!
I think the time has come mate!
Thanks Alex, I'm sure it wasn't 30 years ago.....................it would have been at least 40, surely!!
Appreciate you reading mate, this is a timeless classic, well worth revisiting.
Thanks Cathy, glad it stirred some old memories for you too, take care.
Though it doesn't detract from the film's greatness Damo, you're right - I laughed a lot more in the first half with the Captain's great one-liners. He fades into the background in the third act and it changes tone somewhat, but not to its detriment for me.
The ending's great, perfect I'd say, even though it's a little predictable and something I wouldn't necessarily buy in a thousand other lesser films.
Matt, thanks for reading mate, I've never been a huge fan of hers but she's an interesting actress, having spent much of her time in France for many years now I believe. She really gets down and dirty for this, stripping away any illusion of glamour. She's quite magnificent I'd have to say.
Nice review Matt. Lumet is definitely one of my all time favourite directors on the back of 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon and so many other smaller gems over his amazing career. However, like you, I was slightly underwhelmed by this when I first saw it; there's no doubt that removed from its context, its influence has been diluted a little by time. It's still a great achievement however and one I need to watch again myself.
Hopefully this turns out OK Michelle but I don't have much faith in Cassevetes whose past work has been mostly underwhelming. Not that it's got anything to do with how the film turns out but I have to admit I can't stand Jodi Picoult either, I think it's one of the great mysteries of the universe how she's become such a successful writer, her grasp of reality is a very tenuous one.
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Now corrected for what it's worth!
Comment by David O'Connell
on REVISITING THE FILMS OF LUCHA LIBRE
Screen Fanatic