User Reviews

Having seen a very imperfect print of "Dedee d'Anvers", the film which made Simone Signoret a star, I was delighted to find an excellent, subtitled print of "Impasse", her next film, on YouTube. It was the last work of Maurice Tourneur, and I'd never heard of it before, but although he's less well-known than his son Jacques these days, he was obviously a master director. The film will be a revelation to those who've only seen Signoret's later performances, when she was puffy and encased in fat, a decline her grandson attributed to drink. Here she's young, slim and beautiful. She plays Marianne, an actress about to abandon a successful career to marry an aristocrat. Why is a mystery, as although Marcel Herrand was one of the great screen villains in "Les Enfants du Paradis" his character here is a dull stick. He's never told her he loves her, his snobbish social circle puts her down, and most ominous of all he tells her he aims to mould her. Most women would run a mile. Enter Paul Meurisse as Jean, who was the love of her life until he disappeared years ago. It turns out he was and is a criminal (though she had no idea) and his absence was due to a prison sentence. He's been hired by a gang to steal a priceless necklace the marquis has given Marianne, because he's a master cracksman, described as a virtuoso. His expertise was hardly needed, as her safe must be the quickest and easiest to open safe ever seen in movies. Marianne abandons her aristo and takes off for a nostalgic night with Jean. Again the attraction is baffling as, like Marcello Pagliero in "Dedee" and Delon in way too many films, Meurisse seemed to think a face as frozen as Buster Keaton's signifies toughness. They visit the eponymous street, where the hotel where they used to make love is a wreck, and where they meet a delightful young Daniele Delorme and a young man who's watched too many gangster films. Making the trip less than idyllic are the gang, angry that Jean has failed to hand over the necklace. Signoret and Meurisse went on to make two classics, Clouzot's "Les Diaboliques" and Melville's "L'Armee des Ombres." This film isn't in the same league, but it is most enjoyable, and I loved the way Marianne and Jean's young selves appear as ghost-like figures. As others have noted the ending will resonate with those who have seen "L'Armee."

Seeing a poll start on ICM for the best films from 1948,I decided to start viewing a pile of French films of '48 that I had gathered earlier in the year. Finding the 1943 duo Carnival of Sinners and Valley of Hell to be magnificent works,I was sad to read that 1948 was the last year auteur Maurice Tourneur made a movie, (a car accident would lead to him not making a film for the last 13 years of his life)which led to me paying my respects to Tourneur.

View on the film:

Two angels before they would turn poisonous in the classic Les Diaboliques and team up in Jacques Feyder's Back Streets of Paris,and Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows ( neither of which I've yet seen) Paul Meurisse and beautiful Simone Signoret give excellent performances as Jean and Anne-Marie / Marianne. Assigned with the task of stealing the necklace, Meurisse has Jean ooze "Caper" charisma,with Jean smoothly blending into the glittering champagne parties and performing the robberies with ease. Interrupted in this robbery by a glimpse of Marianne, Meurisse shreds the charm for a Film Noir loner,with Jean being unable to let go of the ghostly memory of his romance with Marianne. Stepping away from the music hall to marry an aristocrat , Simone Signoret brings to light exquisitely the haunted love she shares with Jean,as they walk down old streets,and Signoret gives Marianne a weight to her memories of days long gone.

Reuniting with Tourneur,the screenplay by Jean-Paul Le Chanois gives the opening a playfulness,as the elite Marquis Antoine de Fontaines pulls Marianne into his approved circle of entourage,while Jean hangs out with fellow thieves who have their eyes on the elite dropping their guard. Continuing to allegorically address issues, Chanois sets Jean and Marianne's re-awakened romance against the bombed streets of post-WWII,where the couple find doomed love and fading optimism along the crime-ridden shadowy streets.

Ending his career on an outstanding high, director Maurice Tourneur brings Jean and Marianne memories to the present with ultra-stylised superimposes double-exposures gliding across the street that the couple watch walk by. Giving their final brief encounter an icy Film Noir atmosphere, Tourneur and cinematographer Claude Renoir hold Marianne's necklace with shimmering tracking shots bringing the couple close together and reflecting the dilemma of two angels.

Vetern Maurice Tourneur liked doing it the hard way. Reviled in France because he had chosen to work in America in the early years of the 20th century (thus qualifying him as a Draft Dodger WWI style, despite the fact that he was there long before 1914) he was also guilty of 'working for the enemy' in WWII when he made five films for Continental, the German-run French film company. The fact that he was an innovative and often brilliant filmmaker cut little ice. He made only two films after leaving Continental and in both, Apres l'amour and this one, he remained loyal to his technical colleagues at Continental employing cinematographer Armand Thiraud (Apres), Writer Paul LeChanois, Editor Christian Gaudin and Sound man Georges Leblond (both on this one). Although he lived for several years more the accident he suffered after completing this film left him unable to continue his career. Which makes it just as well that what was to be his 99th and final film turned out to be a gem. Tourneur was a Master at light and shade, camera angles, coaxing the best out of actors, technique ... in fact he was a Master, period. Watch, for example, how he superimposes double-exposures to convey flashbacks to the previous affair of Paul Meurisse and Simone Signoret or how he utilises the Two-Shot in their dialogue scenes in the Present. From the moment Meurisse, who has been hired to lift a necklace from a magnificent château, realizes that the necklace belongs to actress and ex-girlfriend Signoret, he is doomed. Crossing his employers he enjoys a last evening with Signoret before a hail of bullets from a passing car write finis to a beautiful friendship. As a student of irony I relish the link, twenty years on, when Meurisse, as Luc Jardine, head of the Resistance, orders the execution of Mathilde (Signoret) in Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece L'Armee des ombres, and she is duly gunned down by her colleagues from a passing car but shot from the opposite angle. This is a really fine film and should be sought out.

We really know a whole lot less about French movies than we think. This is the last movie by Tourneur senior who was a contemporary of D.W. Griffiths but sustained a career into the post WW2 era.

IMPASSE DES DEUX ANGES is not a great film but it can hold it's own with the other studies of dream haunted studio-urban regret of the day - JULIETTE OU LE CLE DES SONGES, LE DEFROQUE and the rest.

Cracksman Meurisse finds the jewel collar he lifts is to be rich Herrand's gift to Meurisse's old flame, actress Signoret and the pair go off on a nostalgic night together, pursued by his criminal associates. The film's most striking feature is the use of flashbacks where the actors are double exposed in the middle ground of real settings. A car dissolves out rather than drives off.

The curious cast also contains young Delorme and sinister Nalder. The finale with the sheltered neighbor defies anticipation.