User Reviews

This was the first movie in what was to become a very popular series featuring Eddie Constantine as a rough-hewn FBI agent. Consequently I'm a bit surprised to find so little user reviews here : the movie isn't particularly good (au contraire) but it is both well-known and representative of a certain brand of French movie-making typical for that era. For what's it worth, I would not be amazed to learn that the movies influenced at least part of the later James Bond franchise...

The plot - I'm being kind here - revolves around a ruthless gang of robbers and hijackers operating from North-Africa. The boss has a girlfriend, who was told a lie, to wit that her beloved brother was killed by the police. In reality, the man was killed by her own lover. An FBI agent flies to North-Africa in order to bring the gang to heel. Will he be able to convince the boss's girlfriend of the truth ? And will that turn her into a reliable ally ?

"La môme" tries to amuse and entertain. In order to do so it uses a lot of tropes from American noir, hardboiled and crime movies circa 1930, 1940. As a result the movie is awash in exotic scenery, wisecracks, fistfights, nightclub songs, and so on. Actress Dominique Wilms, who I believe is a Belgian, gives the audience a vamp to end all vamps : sporting a blonde Veronica Lake hairdo and mincing around in revealing dresses that are at least two sizes too small for her, she gives long, venomous, smoldering glances from beneath false eyelashes long enough to ensnare hummingbirds. It is not easy - at least for me - to know where the movie is "straight" and where it strays into deliberate hommage, pastiche or parody ; this is a question I gladly leave to professional critics.

Whatever its nature or intent, this is not a very good movie. It is littered with plot holes and WTF moments the size of Australia. The various fights are badly choreographed and the dialogue isn't half as witty as it thinks it is. Moreover, Eddie Constantine acts on a high-school amateur dramatics level, although he does have a certain relaxed charm. His ugly/handsome mug helps a lot here.

As I've said, Dominique Wilms is a sight to behold : watch her lift that manicured, lacquered and richly bejeweled paw in order to light a succession of cigarettes. (For some demented reason, the cigarettes are ten inches long.) The impact on the psychosexual development of a whole generation of adolescent males must have been considerable.

I have enjoyed Eddie Constantine films such as Alphaville, Attack of the Robots, and Hail Mafia. I was curious to see his first film as Lemmy Caution made in 1953. Considering that this film made Constantine a big star in France in 1953, it was disappointing. It is pretty boring, and I'm not sure that it is Constantine's voice that we are hearing (a voice I liked). He is out to stop some smugglers from stealing some gold, and as an FBI agent is dispatched to Morocco.

However, the film may have some interest. The book was written in 1937, this movie made in 1953, the birth of James Bond in Casino Royale. Like Bond, he flirts with the secretary before going to see his boss, he drinks whiskey, were as Bond drinks Martinis. He does not bed women, but he finds any way he can kiss a woman. Even the ending, where he is with a woman, will remind one of James Bond Films, as they are in no hurry to meet up with the police. What was more striking was that this film almost appeared to be a rehearsal for "Thunderball". There is a villain who will remind you of Largo from "Thunderball" played by Howard Vernon, and a woman who is at his side, named Poison Ivy, whose brother, the Vernon character killed. Will she like the female lead in Thunderball, go against this villain? There is a plane high-jacking, a yacht, where our hero is nearly done in, reminded that the sharks might eat him, and a mysterious financier, though not as interesting as Smersh. I could not help but wonder if Lemmy Caution, written by a British Writer, was not an inspiration for James Bond, and what influence "Poison Ivy" had on "Thunderball." A curious aspect of the film is that one of the characters is an alcoholic, and his character is somewhat the subject of ridicule. Yet, our hero drinks a lot (Constantine I have read had trouble with alcoholism) Even getting a drink as he gets up in the morning before going to work. All the drinking that he does, and what one could perceive as an anti alcoholic message is strange, and I found rather disturbing.

If you like Eddie Constantine movies of the 50's and 60's,and also to see what I consider to be the connection to "Thunderball", a far better film I might also add, this might be an interesting film to see, hopefully you won't have to buy it like I did, for between 15.00 to 20.00 dollars, because it sure isn't worth that price.

Director Bernard Borderie's "Poison Ivy" (1953) with Eddie Constantine cast as troubleshooting FBI Agent Lemuel H. Caution is a knock-out crime thriller that foreshadowed the eventual rise of Ian Fleming's James Bond films. British writer Peter Cheyney created his heroic FBI agent back in 1936 with his initial novel "This Man Is Dangerous." However, "Poison Ivy" superseded it as the first cinematic romp for our two-fisted, red blooded lawman on the loose. The opening scenes when Caution receives his orders from his boss and necks with his boss's secretary appear to be the template that the Bond franchise would adopt. Caution lands in North Africa at Casablanca and sets out to prove that he is no cupcake. In fact, "Poison Ivy" features all the well-known tropes in the best Bonds. For example, the plot concerns the theft of Treasury millions. So the stakes aren't peanuts. An affluent, behind the scenes magnate provides the villainous Rudy Saltierra (Howard Vernon) with a yacht. When Rudy captures Lemmy aboard his yacht, he decides to kneel haul him, that is drag him behind his yacht and let the sharks munch on him. Turns out that Ian Fleming in his second 007 novel "Live and Let Die" would has Bond towed behind a yacht with sharks in the area. Lemmy isn't your standard-issue hero. Indeed, he is rough around the edges and those edges are might sharp. Like the Bond movies, "Poison Ivy" has a gorgeous dame of a heroine who fits the description of most Bond heroines. Although it was lensed in black & white, this gritty yarn falls somewhere between a Mickey Spillane novel and a Bond novel.

Purists will note Peter Cheyney's novel, which is written in first person prose that is steeping in tough guy lingo, takes place in the U. S. during its early scenes with our hero being summoned from the midwest to New York City to meet the equivalent of the same individual that Lemmy met in Casablanca in the cinematic version. Apart from the locale change, writer & director Bernard Borderie sticks to the bare bones of Cheyney plot. Lemmy discovers his contact dead in a phone booth in the novel in New York, just as in the film, he found Duncan dead in the phone booth in Casablanca.