When it comes to the 'great' French film-makers from, say, the 'classic' period in the nation's cinema, the 1930s to the 1950s inclusive, the names that spring to my mind include Jean Renoir, Marcel Carné, Jean Vigo, Jacques Becker, Jean-Pierre Melville, Henri-Georges Clouzot and maybe one or two others, but that of Julien Duvivier might not even feature. Aside from the man's two most renowned entries, 1936's La Belle Equipe and the following year's Pépé La Moko, the name Duvivier has perhaps been somewhat overlooked (on this side of La Manche, at least). This 'late', 1956, effort from the writer-director is most definitely worthy of some attention, however. I'll admit my attention was initially drawn to the film by the name of the great Jean Gabin, at 52 looking somewhat chubbier than in his prime (think 1954's Touchez pas au grisbi), but the man's mastery of his craft has diminished not one jot. Here, Gabin plays the successful, celebrated even, Les Halles restaurateur, André Chatelin, a 'bachelor' (more accurately, divorcee) happy with his lot, a father figure to Gérard Blain's 'radical' young medical student, Gérard Delacroix, until Danièle Delorme's mysterious young woman, Catherine, comes into Chatelin's life claiming to be the daughter of André's dead wife. What follows is, narrative-wise, a relatively straightforward case of 'gold-digging' by Catherine (supposedly in support of her, actually not deceased, but drug-addled, mother), but shot in atmospheric black-and-white by Armand Thirard and with a witty and emotive script by Duvivier, and what we get is an absorbing poetic-realistic tale in the vein of a Carné with the observational detail and sense of characterisation of a Renoir.
The 'feast' that Duvivier delivers here could be said to be something of balanced meal. On the one hand, there is a clear celebration of French gastronomy, as one diner puts it, 'a cuisine that is uniquely French!', with Chatelin repeatedly detailing the constituents of dish after dish for his diners (for me, the film is probably the most food-centric I've seen, along with Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast). On the other hand, Duvivier paints a dark picture of human and, it has to be said, specifically female, instinct. Oddly enough, the film's French title, which translates roughly as, 'this is the time for murderers', or even the (weak) UK equivalent, '12 hours to live', pale against the US version (lifted from the Rudyard Kipling poem), Deadlier Than The Male. Not only does Duvivier point to the 'gentle sex' having more duplicitous and ruthless potential, but the average woman here leaves both André and Gérard in their wake in terms of, frankly, what's going on (i.e. That they're being played) - this is, perhaps, one of the film's weaknesses, the pair's apparent ignorance! The superior perceptiveness of the female characters is best demonstrated by André's maid, Gabrielle Fontan superb as Madame Jules, who casts doubt on Catherine's tale from the off, quipping, 'That's not her', as Catherine shows André a picture of her, supposedly deceased, mother, prying into André's private mail and generally acting the busybody. The well-drawn female characterisations here extend to Germaine Kerjean as André's resentful mother, who takes against Catherine (largely through the reputation of the latter's mother) and is part of the two-hander highlight scene in which she takes a 'whip' to Catherine. Duvivier's uncompromising portrait of the seedy side of Parisian life is quite brilliantly done (and very Renoir-like, from something like Les Bas-Fonds), depicting Lucienne Bogaert's mother to Catherine, Gabrielle, in all her debauched disarray, as well as, slightly more subtly, via Aimé Clariond's regular visitor to André's restaurant and seducer of women multiple decades his junior, Monsieur Prévost.
Duvivier's cast are impressive throughout, particularly the supporting character parts and, despite the rather dubious ease with which her character manages to dupe the two men in her life, Danièle Delorme is also something of a revelation as the manipulative 'innocent'. Delorme seems to have been most famous for playing the title role in the 1949 French version of Gigi and, interestingly, the actress does have a similarly cute demeanour as both Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron, each of whom also played as Colette's character. Aside from the comparison that can be made between Duvivier's style here with the films of Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné, the other films that immediately sprang to my mind were the Fritz Lang 1940 noirs, Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street, the latter itself a remake of Renoir's La Chienne.
The 'feast' that Duvivier delivers here could be said to be something of balanced meal. On the one hand, there is a clear celebration of French gastronomy, as one diner puts it, 'a cuisine that is uniquely French!', with Chatelin repeatedly detailing the constituents of dish after dish for his diners (for me, the film is probably the most food-centric I've seen, along with Gabriel Axel's Babette's Feast). On the other hand, Duvivier paints a dark picture of human and, it has to be said, specifically female, instinct. Oddly enough, the film's French title, which translates roughly as, 'this is the time for murderers', or even the (weak) UK equivalent, '12 hours to live', pale against the US version (lifted from the Rudyard Kipling poem), Deadlier Than The Male. Not only does Duvivier point to the 'gentle sex' having more duplicitous and ruthless potential, but the average woman here leaves both André and Gérard in their wake in terms of, frankly, what's going on (i.e. That they're being played) - this is, perhaps, one of the film's weaknesses, the pair's apparent ignorance! The superior perceptiveness of the female characters is best demonstrated by André's maid, Gabrielle Fontan superb as Madame Jules, who casts doubt on Catherine's tale from the off, quipping, 'That's not her', as Catherine shows André a picture of her, supposedly deceased, mother, prying into André's private mail and generally acting the busybody. The well-drawn female characterisations here extend to Germaine Kerjean as André's resentful mother, who takes against Catherine (largely through the reputation of the latter's mother) and is part of the two-hander highlight scene in which she takes a 'whip' to Catherine. Duvivier's uncompromising portrait of the seedy side of Parisian life is quite brilliantly done (and very Renoir-like, from something like Les Bas-Fonds), depicting Lucienne Bogaert's mother to Catherine, Gabrielle, in all her debauched disarray, as well as, slightly more subtly, via Aimé Clariond's regular visitor to André's restaurant and seducer of women multiple decades his junior, Monsieur Prévost.
Duvivier's cast are impressive throughout, particularly the supporting character parts and, despite the rather dubious ease with which her character manages to dupe the two men in her life, Danièle Delorme is also something of a revelation as the manipulative 'innocent'. Delorme seems to have been most famous for playing the title role in the 1949 French version of Gigi and, interestingly, the actress does have a similarly cute demeanour as both Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron, each of whom also played as Colette's character. Aside from the comparison that can be made between Duvivier's style here with the films of Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné, the other films that immediately sprang to my mind were the Fritz Lang 1940 noirs, Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street, the latter itself a remake of Renoir's La Chienne.