Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p34

09/02/2014 09:40 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p33

09/02/2014 09:38 par tellurikwaves

No Time To Kill? Make Some And Check Out This Gem

Author: writers_reign from London, England
28 October 2005

When you post as many comments on this site as I do the Law of Averages dictates that you receive a certain amount of feedback in the form of PMs and I guess I've had my share both pro and con. A little over a year ago I posted a comment on a French film made during the war and largely forgotten certainly outside France. Shortly after it appeared a received a PM from a French guy who was very pleased that someone had mentioned this film. Since that time we corresponded spasmodically then out of the blue he wrote and asked if I would like him to tape any French films from French TV and if so which.

Naturally I jumped at the chance and asked for anything directed by Henri Decoin, Julian Duvivier, Claude Autant-Lara and anything written by Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost, Charles Spaak, Henri Jeanson and Jacques Prevert and the upshot is I have just received several great French movies including this late masterpiece by Julian Duvivier. I won't reveal the guy's name lest he is inundated with those both anxious and willing to trespass on his kindness but I am delighted to use this forum to record what positives can come from IMDb which has, alas, many things wrong with it. Now for the movie.

There are those who may find it referential - Gabin's mother runs a dance hall on the banks of the Marne and a decade earlier Gabin himself as one of Duvivier's Belle Equipe built a similar establishment in a similar location; In Rene Clair's Le Silence est d'Or a young girl prevailed on an older man to take her in and here Daniel Delorme prevails on the older Gabin in much the same way - but not to its detriment. Gabin runs a restaurant in Les Halles, the wonderful market in Paris which has gone the way of London's Covent Garden but which was very much alive in 1956 when this film was made, he's a genial sort, always ready to see the good in people rather than the worst so when Delorme, the daughter of his estranged wife, turns up claiming orphan status he is happy to take her in despite the fact that he has an adoptive son already.

Of course the mother is not really dead and Delorme is not half so naive or angelic as she lets on; we get our first glimpse of her darker/colder side when she coolly rejects an old lover and watches dispassionately as he throws himself under a camion, barely registering the impact before hurrying to a rendez-vous with her very much alive and drink and drug-raddled mother where they fine tune plans to seduce Gabin and divvy up his money.

The black and white photography complements the story perfectly and reminds us at times of that other classic Les Diaboliques and there are some lovely touches like Gabin's mother's mastery of a whip which she uses with equal dexterity for despatching chickens and chastising Delorme. In short this is one of the finest films that ever got right up Truffaut's nose and if only he'd tried to make something one tenth as good instead of slagging off these films we'd all have been a lot happier. Not to be missed.

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p32

09/02/2014 09:36 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p31

09/02/2014 09:34 par tellurikwaves

Germaine Kerjean : Mme Chatelin mère

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Je regrette de ne pas avoir trouvé plus de photos d'elle (une actrice fantastique!!) ainsi que qq photos du personnel (La vieille gouvernante,les serveuses ,le cuisinier en second,et qq photos des Halles...J'ai passé éénormément de temps à tenter d'ouvrir des liens de torrents...peut-être aurez vous + de succès

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p30

09/02/2014 09:32 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p29

09/02/2014 09:29 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS p28

09/02/2014 09:27 par tellurikwaves

Justice is finally meted out by a dog! Verging on horror !

Author: Nicholas Rhodes from Ile-de-France / Paris Region, France
8 September 2004

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This film, recently reissued on a René Château DVD ( subtitles missing yet again !) is a very good all-rounder cinematographically speaking. First we have the wailing theme song sung by Germaine Montero accompanied by a shivery solo accordion. The picture quality, though black and white, is excellent and the sets themselves are the epitomy, for the Paris region at least, of French popular culture.

First and foremost we have a long disappeared part of Paris, the Halles market, called "le ventre de Paris" or the belly of Paris due to its being the source of nourishment for most of the Parisians. The atmosphere of this area is extremely well rendered and we see various characters typical of the day, and notably a few "forts" or strong men, so called because they used to lug around day in and day out huge carcasses of meat upon their shoulders.

Many years ago, Les Halles was transferred out of Paris to Rungis in the suburbs and the gaping hole that was left after the removal of the four "pavillons" or market buildings has today been filled with a shopping mall called the "Forum des Halles" but which has little to do with the original market building. One of the original pavillons was saved and re-erected at Nogent-sur-Marne in the suburbs, not far from the Marne river and is used for dances and other meetings.

The second aspect of parisian culture is the guingette or dance Hall on the banks of the Marne river owned by Gabin's mother. It is set quite a way out at Lagny-sur-Marne. We see various characters of the time and hear the accordion music to which millions danced the "java", "valse musette" and other typically parisian popular dances.The third aspect is the seedy room in the Hôtel du Charolais in which lives the supposedly deceased mother of Danièle Delorme and where the final horror takes place.

The film was made by Julien Duvivier ( cf La Belle Equipe ) who was a master of a certain type of french film called "film noir", a pessimistic type of film with a gloomy unpromising ending, what the French call "une fin sans concession".The film is extremely well acted. Gabin is between two ages, not the young impetuous character from La Belle Equipe nor the older patriarch character from "La Horse" ou "Le Clan des Siciliens". I think he is supposed to be in his mid fifties, perhaps as he was in real life and comes over EXCELLENTLY as a restaurant owner. Delorme, who had an angelic face but an evil character beyond all imagination turns up as the daughter of his estranged wife saying her mother is dead and asking Gabin to look after her. All this is a devilish plot fomented between her and her mother, who is still alive, to marry Gabin for his money and then dispose of him.

Gabin is so good-natured that he doesn't see this at first and takes Delorme at face value to the point of even turning against his own adoptive sun. Delorme is extremely evil to the point of playing one off against the other - when you see her at it you want to wring her neck ! - but a certain number of fateful slip-ups will be made along the way and she will come a cropper in conformity with the outcome of this 'film noir". She not only precipitates one of her former lovers to his death but also kills Gabin's adopted sun with a coldness which can only be described as totally psychotic !!

Although Delorme and her mother are evil, they are not alone. Gabin's mother, who runs the guingette in Lagny is a cold domineering character who has an inventive way of killing chickens - with a whiplash - quite a nifty idea on the part of Duvivier I thought - and this same whiplash is used to good effect on Delorme at one moment in the film.There is also a servant woman, extremely ugly and shrivelled-up who is poking her nose into everyone else's affairs. All this goes to show that, bar Gabin and his adoptive son, most of the other characters in the film are real scum and the spectator can have no sympathy with them at all. It's just a shame to see someone as nice as Gabin being taken in.

The final justice is meted out to Delorme not by Gabin as we might expect but by the dog belonging to his murdered son who no doubt "smelled" out his killer. An excellent way of getting Gabin off the hook, and in fact causing more panic in Delorme's eyes than if she had been threatened by a man !I have no idea whether the film is known outside France ( like Les Diaboliques ) but it certainly merits the attention of anyone who is interested in good French cinema of the "Film Noir" type. More than that it is a living documentary of Paris in 1959 and is a must for those across the world who love that city !

Š-DR- VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS p27

09/02/2014 09:24 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR- VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS p26

09/02/2014 09:21 par tellurikwaves

Š-DR-VOICI LE TEMPS DES ASSASSINS de Julien Duvivier(1956) p25

09/02/2014 09:19 par tellurikwaves