And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956)

Marie Glory, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Christian Marquand, and Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman

Juliette Hardy: Brigitte Bardot
Eric Carradine: Curd Jürgens
Michel Tardieu: Jean-Louis Trintignant
Antoine Tardieu: Christian Marquand
Mme. Morin: Jane Marken
M. Vigier-Lefranc: Jean Tissier
Mme. Vigier-Lefranc: Jacqueline Ventura
Lucienne: Isabelle Cory
Mme. Tardieu: Marie Glory
Christian Tardieu: Georges Poujouly

Director: Roger Vadim
Screenplay: Roger Vadim, Raoul Lévy
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Production design: Jean André
Film editing: Victoria Mercanton
Music: Paul Misraki

For an exploitation film, which is what Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman surely must be called, the director and his co-screenwriter, Raoul Lévy, certainly devote a lot of attention to crafting something of a plot and a smattering of characterization. But what the movie is really about is Brigitte Bardot's body, which upstages everything else, including a determined performance by the young Jean-Louis Trintignant, on the brink of a distinguished career. Trintignant struggles to make sense of the infatuated Michel, but there's not much written into the character beyond his status as the middle of three brothers, caught in a hormonal web. Bardot's Juliette is so obviously meant to mate with the virile oldest brother, Antoine, that the film seems to be marking time before the consummation of the obvious. And when that happens, there's little else for the story to do but either erupt in a violent fraternal conflict or trail off into unhappy uncertainty. It does a feint at the former before fizzing out into the latter, substituting an extended scene of Juliette flaunting her stuff for some musicians as the real climax. Bardot had genuine acting talent, as her work in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) would reveal, but it was usually hidden beneath the other gifts that nature gave her, and Vadim did his worst to keep it hidden. Cinematographer Armand Thirard seems constrained by the aspect ratio of CinemaScope, frequently grouping his characters on one side of the screen while filling the rest with inessentials, like the staircase on the right side of the scene shown above, although he occasionally pulls off some interesting deep-focus compositions with this approach. Still his work on the film is probably most famous for a screen-wide shot of the nude Bardot that American censors slashed at ruthlessly.

La Main du Diable (Maurice Tourneur, 1943)

Pierre Fresnay in La Main du Diable

Roland Brissot: Pierre Fresnay
Irène: Josseline Gaël
Mélisse: Noël Roquevert
Gibelin: Guillaume de Sax
The Little Man: Palau
Angel: Pierre Larquey
The Diner: André Gabriello
Denis: Antoine Balpêtré
Mme. Denis: Marcelle Rexiane
The Colonel: André Varennes
Duval: Georges Chamarat
The Musketeer: Jean Davy
The Boxer: Jean Despreaux
Maximus Léo: André Bacqué
The Fortune Teller: Gabrielle Fontan

Director: Maurice Tourneur
Screenplay: Jean-Paul Le Chanois
Based on a novel by Gérard de Nerval
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Production design: Andrej Andrejew
Film editing: Christian Gaudin
Music: Roger Dumas

Maurice Tourneur's son, Jacques Tourneur, is better-known in the United States today because of his work for producer Val Lewton on arty horror films like Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943), as well as the quintessential film noir Out of the Past (1947). Maurice had been a mainstay Hollywood director in the silent era -- director Clarence Brown named him as one of his mentors -- but grew impatient with studio interference and returned to France just as sound was coming in. As a result, La Main du Diable (released in the States as Carnival of Sinners) is probably his best-known film on this side of the Atlantic. It shares with his son's films a stylish approach to horror filmmaking, in which creating a mood takes precedence over shocking the audience. Based on a story by Gérard de Nerval, La Main du Diable is about a struggling artist, Roland Brissot, who buys a talisman, a severed hand in a casket, from a chef, paying only a penny for it. The chef claims that it has made him a success, but that it must be sold again, at less than the price Brissot paid him for it, before the artist dies. Otherwise his soul will be lost forever. Brissot's career takes off, making him rich, and he marries his model, Irène, who had hitherto spurned him. But he soon finds that he's being stalked by a little man in black, the devil himself, who makes it clear that the talisman is the real thing and offers to buy it back from Brissot, who is unable to sell it because there's no coin smaller than the penny he had paid. The artist, enjoying his celebrity and wealth, turns him down, but is then informed that since the buyback offer has been made, the price will double each day. Soon the price has mounted into the millions and Brissot begins to panic, looking for a way to get rid of the hand. He then learns the lineage of the hand, which began several centuries ago with a deal made by a monk named Maximus Léo -- which is also the name Brissot, under the spell of the hand, has been signing to his paintings. If Brissot can reunite the hand with the monk's body, then the deal can be broken. All of this is told in flashback to a crowd at the inn in the French Alps to which Brissot has traveled, the little man in black pursuing him, trying to find the tomb of Maximus Léo. There's not really much horror on display in La Main du Diable, but the film is full of striking visuals, the work of production designer Andrej Andrejew and cinematographer Armand Thirard, and Tourneur directs a capable and colorful cast headed by Pierre Fresnay as Brissot. Since the film was made in occupied France, there are those who think it's a subversive allegory about the price exacted from the French in capitulating to the Nazis.

Remorques (Jean Grémillon, 1941)

Michèle Morgan and Jean Gabin in Remorques

André Laurent: Jean Gabin
Yvonne Laurent: Madeleine Renaud
Catherine: Michèle Morgan
Gabriel Tanguy: Charles Blavette
Marc: Jean Marchat
Renée Tanguy: Nane Germon
Radioman: Jean Dasté
Georges: René Bergeron
Dr. Maulette: Henri Poupon
Marie Poubennec: Anne Laurens
Le Meur: Marcel Pérès
Pierre Poubennec: Marcel Duhamel

Director: Jean Grémillon
Screenplay: Jacques Prévert, André Cayatte
Based on a novel by Roger Vercel
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Yvonne Martin
Music: Roland Manuel

Remorques features Jean Gabin at his most effortlessly rugged and romantic, playing André Laurent, the captain of a tugboat that rescues distressed ships and is paid a percentage of the assessed value of their salvaged cargo. He's happily married to the delicate Yvonne, who longs for him to give up the hazardous work and retire to a less stormy port. Still, André is also devoted to his longtime crew and is reluctant to leave them to the mercies of the company's management. One stormy night they go out to rescue a ship whose captain, Marc, is a nasty piece of work. Among other things, he has a very unhappy wife, Catherine, who manages to escape from the ship in a lifeboat that is picked up by André and his crew. When the storm begins to subside, Marc manages to break the towline that is pulling his ship to shore and head to the port of destination under his own steam, thereby depriving André's tug of its share of the rescue money. But André has salvaged something else from the rescue: Catherine, to whom he is attracted at the peril of his marriage. As their relationship heats up, however, Yvonne becomes seriously ill. Director Jean Grémillon makes the most of this blend of action and romance, keeping it from sinking into mush by leavening things with solid supporting performances and providing a piquant, bittersweet outcome. Remorques was made under difficult circumstances as France fell to the Germans, and was not released until after its stars, Gabin and Michèle Morgan, had left the country for Hollywood.

Poil de Carotte (Julien Duvivier, 1932)

Poil de Carotte -- which means "carrot top" -- is a curious amalgam of fairytale themes and psychological realism. The film evokes fairytales with its story of a neglected and exploited child who has a kindly godparent, set in a picturesque French village that, except for the absence of a castle with a prince in it, could have doubled for the setting of Cinderella. We first meet the film's Cinderella analog, François Lepic (Robert Lynen), known universally as "Poil de carotte," as he is about to leave school for a vacation back home. He doesn't really want to go: When we first see him, he is being criticized by a teacher for having written in an essay, "A family is a group of people forced to live together under one roof who can't stand one another." We soon find out how he comes by this cynical definition when he arrives home to his vaguely neglectful father (Harry Baur), his icy, controlling mother (Catherine Fonteney), and his spoiled older siblings, Ernestine (Simone Aubry) and Félix (Maxime Fromiot). His status in the family becomes apparent at the dinner table, where he sits licking his lips in anticipation of the dish of melon slices being passed around, only to have his mother say he doesn't want any, apparently because she doesn't like melons. After dinner, he is sent to take the melon rinds -- he gnaws on them once he's outside -- to the rabbits and to shut the gate to the chicken yard. He protests: It's dark outside and he's scared. But his sister and brother refuse the task because they're both reading, and he's sent out into the night, which he imagines to be full of ghosts dancing in a ring. His only escape from the chores, his mother's harshness, and his father's indifference is to visit his godfather (Louis Gauthier), a cheerful idler, where he wades in the brook and has a mock wedding with a little neighbor girl, Mathilde (Colette Segall), presided over by the godfather playing a tune on his hurdy-gurdy. It's a lovely little pastoral idyll that ends all too soon. As he returns home, Poil de Carotte realizes how lonely and unloved he is, and he begins to contemplate suicide. This abrupt reversal of mood comes from an 1894 novella by Jules Renard that writer-director Julien Duvivier first adapted for a silent movie version in 1926. It's a little too abrupt for a work of psychological truth: Poil de Carotte has been seen as resilient and resourceful up to this point, and his deep depression comes upon him all too suddenly. When he finally achieves a connection with his father, in a scene that despite the dramatic flaws of the film is quite touching, it's explained to us that Poil de Carotte was conceived by accident, long after the husband and wife had ceased to love each other. He therefore became an object of resentment by both parents. At the end, the father vows that everyone will call him François, not Poil de Carotte, henceforth. The performances by Lynen and Baur make this second reversal plausible, if not entirely convincing. Duvivier's direction is more solid than his screenplay, and the film is at its best in the scenes of village life, beautifully shot by Armand Thirard.    

Hôtel du Nord (Marcel Carné, 1938)

Bernard Blier and Arletty in Hõtel du Nord

Raymonde: Arletty
Edmond: Louis Jouvet
Renée: Annabella
Pierre: Jean-Pierre Aumont
Louise Lecouvreur: Jane Marken
Emile Lecouvreur: André Brunot
Maltaverne: René Bergeron
Ginette: Paulette Dubost
Adrien: François Périer
Kenel: Andrex
Nazarède: Henri Bosc
The Surgeon: Marcel André
Prosper: Bernard Blier
Munar: Jacques Louvigny
The Commissioner: Armand Lurville
The Nurse: Génia Vaury

Director: Marcel Carné
Screenplay: Henri Jeanson, Jean Aurenche
Based on a novel by Eugène Dabit
Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard
Production design: Alexandre Trauner
Film editing: Marthe Gottié, René Le Hénaff
Music: Maurice Jaubert

I had seen Arletty in a movie only once before, as the fascinating, enigmatic Garance in Marcel Carné's great Children of Paradise (1945), so I was completely unprepared for her performance as the raucous streetwalker Raymonde in Hôtel du Nord. Raymonde shares a room in the hotel with Edmond, a photographer who is hiding out from his old cronies in the Parisian underworld. The film begins with a traveling shot along the canal that flanks the hotel, where we first see a young pair of lovers, Pierre and Renée, walking arm in arm. Inside the hotel, the residents are celebrating the first communion of the daughter of Maltaverne, a policeman who lives at the hotel. (It's a diverse household.) Pierre and Renée enter and request a room for the night, but instead of making love, they have decided on a suicide pact: He will shoot her, then kill himself. He holds up the first part of the bargain, but then chickens out. Edmond, who has been in his darkroom, hears the shot and breaks down the door, finding Renée apparently dead and Pierre cowering indecisively. Taking the gun from Pierre, Edmond urges him to flee. (The gun becomes a Chekhov's gun when Edmond first tosses it away and then recovers it and stashes it in a drawer.) Renée recovers from the gunshot, and Pierre, torn with guilt, turns himself into the police as an attempted murderer and is sent to prison. After she recuperates, Renée returns to the hotel to collect her things, and is offered a job there by Madame Lecouvreur, the wife of the proprietor. And so the story of the suicidal lovers begins to intertwine with that of Edmond and Raymonde. It's all neatly done, with a great deal of atmosphere (a word that Raymonde will give a particular spin to), much of it created by Alexandre Trauner's set, a re-creation in the studios at Billancourt of the actual hotel and the Canal St. Martin.  The film's melodrama is alleviated by the ensemble work and the performances of Jouvet, who can switch from menacing to vulnerable in an instant, and Arletty, who makes the tough, worldly wise Raymonde often very funny. The film concludes with Carné's skillful staging of an elaborate Bastille Day sequence that anticipates the crowd scenes in Children of Paradise.

Diabolique (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)

Diabolique (or Les Diaboliques) was probably one of the first foreign language films I ever saw (although I'm sure I must have seen it in a version dubbed into English, as most U.S. releases were back then). The only thing I retained from it, I'm afraid, is the surprise ending. So I'm glad to say that it holds up after all these years, as any good thriller must even when you know its twists. I am, for the record, not one who is spoiled by "spoilers": I knew the gimmick in The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992) before I saw it, and I like to think I appreciated it more because I could see how it was being set up, and I enjoyed The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999) more the second time I watched it. To my mind, any good thriller with a twist has to work independently of that twist, which Diabolique does. What it has going for it especially is Clouzot's superb control of atmosphere: sets (Léon Barsacq), music (Georges Van Parys), cinematography (Armand Thirard), and of course the performances of Véra Clouzot as Christina, Simone Signoret as Nicole, Paul Meurisse as Michel, Charles Vanel as Fichet, and a gallery of mildly grotesque supporting players, all working together to create a thoroughly sordid and unpleasant but also hypnotizing milieu. Even before the murder takes place, I was seriously creeped out by the shabby old school, its rowdy boys and ratty staff, and the sadism displayed by Michel toward his wife and mistress. That said, the story doesn't entirely hold together in any dispassionate post-viewing analysis. Without giving away any of the film's secrets, I spotted numerous loose threads. To name one, why is Christina so insistent on not divorcing Michel when she's perfectly willing to go along with a plot to murder him? We are expected to believe that she's a devout Catholic with religious scruples against divorce, but surely the church is at least as much against murdering your husband as it is against divorcing him. But I'm perfectly happy to ignore the implausible when the movie is as gripping as this one is.