Henri Decoin wrote his first produced screenplay in 1925 and directed his first film (a short) in 1933 so by 1949 he was a very accomplished writer-director and lavished all his expertise on this very stylish film that's difficult to categorise; Louis Jouvet was playing his second policeman in two years (Quai des Orfevres, 1947) and in between he starred in another brilliant Decoin movie Les Amoureux sont seuls au monde. He had also recently appeared in a film where he had a doppleganger but instead of recasting the leading role in this film - which required Jouvet's police inspector to investigate the murder of his gangster double - Decoin chose to flaunt it via an opening sequence which more or less stands alone; a group of movie-goers leave a cinema where they have just seen Eddie Robinson play two lookalikes and even as they are scoffing they are confronted by not two but three identical lookalikes amongst themselves. This out of the way Decoin gets down to the main event; a gangster is murdered and his double is assigned to the case. In the first reel - ten minutes - Decoin lays more stylish noir (shadow/light, distorted angles etc) on us than Jacques Tourneur (rightly celebrated as a master of noir) put in the entire Build My Gallows High, and this is before we have met Madeleine Robinson. Throw in a fashion show where the creations are all named after low-key movies and which is itself disrupted by armed gangsters and you are looking at one hell of a movie. Put me down for seconds.
5 Reviews
French Noir
boblipton7 August 2018
Louis Jouvet is a Parisian police inspector investigating one murder when his dopy assistant tells him of another, a man who could be his twin. Jouvet goes to the dead man's apartment and when one of the victim's associates turns up, he is mistaken for the man. To investigate, Jouvet impersonates the dead man, and finds himself in the middle of an underworld of thieves, prostitutes, homosexual guns-for-hire and intrigue.
Writer/Director Henri Decoin was a commercially successful figure in French cinema for more than thirty years and worked with many well-remembered stars -- he was married to Dannielle Darrieux for half a dozen years. The quality of his works varied enormously, but he certainly shows the seamy side of Paris in this movie, and even if Jouvet goes through the entire movie acting as if he is suffering from an ulcer, in the end he gives one of his telling performances. Like the other well-known directors of French noir, Decoin showed a dirtier world than most American directors, still operating under the Production Code, could get away with, and the result is far more telling.
Writer/Director Henri Decoin was a commercially successful figure in French cinema for more than thirty years and worked with many well-remembered stars -- he was married to Dannielle Darrieux for half a dozen years. The quality of his works varied enormously, but he certainly shows the seamy side of Paris in this movie, and even if Jouvet goes through the entire movie acting as if he is suffering from an ulcer, in the end he gives one of his telling performances. Like the other well-known directors of French noir, Decoin showed a dirtier world than most American directors, still operating under the Production Code, could get away with, and the result is far more telling.
Engaging mystery, if you go along with a very far-fetched premise
gridoon202425 October 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Well, that's certainly original: a police inspector investigating a murder case by impersonating the victim, of whom he luckily happens to be an exact doppelganger. If you can accept this wildly far-fetched premise, this is quite an engaging little murder mystery: it opens very brightly (even including a "meta" joke about actor Louis Jouvet), then the inventiveness slows down, but the film remains enjoyable. **1/2 out of 4.
Dead ringers.
dbdumonteil26 December 2001
The beginning promised great things:in the space of five minutes ,the director manages to pay a tribute to two American movies ("the whole town's talking (1935),the great dictator(1940)) and to a French one too ("copie conforme",Jean Dreville,1946).While people,leaving a movie theater,complain about the implausibility of these dead ringers films,they actually meet three doubles who make them shiver.
What follows is a something of a let-down.There are still strange scenes,for instance the fashion show where every outfit is called after the name of a thriller(novel);then the gangsters bursting into the room and making a clean sweep of all the values.But Henry (in the credits ,it's a y)Decoin gives a rather satisfactory script three different treatments in turn: whodunit,film noir and comedy.And however the idea was splendid:a cop (Jouvet) realizes that he's the dead ringer of a man who's been murdered and he takes his place.Sometimes it works and the dialogue is really funny and the story suspenseful.But sometimes it doesn't and interest falls away:the scenes with Madeleine Robinson,who is a very fine actress though,are not convincing.Too many subplots and too many characters do not help.
It 's a watchable curio ,but as far dead ringers are concerned,Alfred Hitchcock did better with "the wrong man"(1956).He even transcended the topic with "Vertigo" two years after.
What follows is a something of a let-down.There are still strange scenes,for instance the fashion show where every outfit is called after the name of a thriller(novel);then the gangsters bursting into the room and making a clean sweep of all the values.But Henry (in the credits ,it's a y)Decoin gives a rather satisfactory script three different treatments in turn: whodunit,film noir and comedy.And however the idea was splendid:a cop (Jouvet) realizes that he's the dead ringer of a man who's been murdered and he takes his place.Sometimes it works and the dialogue is really funny and the story suspenseful.But sometimes it doesn't and interest falls away:the scenes with Madeleine Robinson,who is a very fine actress though,are not convincing.Too many subplots and too many characters do not help.
It 's a watchable curio ,but as far dead ringers are concerned,Alfred Hitchcock did better with "the wrong man"(1956).He even transcended the topic with "Vertigo" two years after.
Without desire, love is a verb that's passive, neutered."
DoorsofDylan3 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
After weeks of it slowing down, I decided to clear my online history, in order to speed my laptop up. Checking afterwards,I found that I had been logged out of just one site: IMDb.
With my E-Mail company ( cwctv) going bust years ago, I've been unable to log in to change my E-Mail for IMDb. Introducing a new 2-step verification, IMDb made it impossible for me to sign in.
Spending the day exchanging E-Mails with them, I ended getting told the after starting on 27th May 2005 with a review of The Doors (1991), and 2,956 reviews later, that the doors were permanently being closed on my morrison-dylan-fan IMDb account.
Feeling sad and frustrated ( and with this, my back-up account via Facebook, also getting locked by this site in a few days),I decided to cheer myself up,by picking up a disc I've been planning to see for years, and finally watch it, between 11PM and midnight.
View on the film:
Shadowing Carrel running towards his unofficial double, co-writer (with Marcel Rivet and Henri Jeanson) / director Henri Decoin & Le Doulos (1962-also reviewed) cinematographer Nicolas Hayer ignite a playful, self-aware Pop-Art Film Noir atmosphere, exploding from ultra-stylized dissolves and jagged whip-pans over posters of Edward G. Robinson outside cinemas screening John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), which melts to drive-by via silhouette car, and slices through high contrast lighting, to land on the stark stone cold face of Carrel.
Made the same year that she starred in Such a Pretty Little Beach (also reviewed), Madeleine Robinson gives an exquisite performance as Lusigny, a Femme Fatale flame that burns at Carrel's fears of being found out. Finding that he looks just like a murdered man, Louis Jouvet gives a terrific turn as Noir loner inspector Carrel, whose morals are ruthlessly stamped on, as Carrel becomes drawn to a new identity.
Turning the clock hands on Jouvet in their adaptation of Claude Luxel's novel, the screenplay by Rivet, Jeanson and Decoin load an amusing comedic take on Noir staples,from a fashion show where every dress a dame wears is named after a Thriller movies, to Carrel slithering away from his old, respectable imagine, to a new one that fits him like a velvet glove, which he wears between eleven and midnight.
With my E-Mail company ( cwctv) going bust years ago, I've been unable to log in to change my E-Mail for IMDb. Introducing a new 2-step verification, IMDb made it impossible for me to sign in.
Spending the day exchanging E-Mails with them, I ended getting told the after starting on 27th May 2005 with a review of The Doors (1991), and 2,956 reviews later, that the doors were permanently being closed on my morrison-dylan-fan IMDb account.
Feeling sad and frustrated ( and with this, my back-up account via Facebook, also getting locked by this site in a few days),I decided to cheer myself up,by picking up a disc I've been planning to see for years, and finally watch it, between 11PM and midnight.
View on the film:
Shadowing Carrel running towards his unofficial double, co-writer (with Marcel Rivet and Henri Jeanson) / director Henri Decoin & Le Doulos (1962-also reviewed) cinematographer Nicolas Hayer ignite a playful, self-aware Pop-Art Film Noir atmosphere, exploding from ultra-stylized dissolves and jagged whip-pans over posters of Edward G. Robinson outside cinemas screening John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking (1935), which melts to drive-by via silhouette car, and slices through high contrast lighting, to land on the stark stone cold face of Carrel.
Made the same year that she starred in Such a Pretty Little Beach (also reviewed), Madeleine Robinson gives an exquisite performance as Lusigny, a Femme Fatale flame that burns at Carrel's fears of being found out. Finding that he looks just like a murdered man, Louis Jouvet gives a terrific turn as Noir loner inspector Carrel, whose morals are ruthlessly stamped on, as Carrel becomes drawn to a new identity.
Turning the clock hands on Jouvet in their adaptation of Claude Luxel's novel, the screenplay by Rivet, Jeanson and Decoin load an amusing comedic take on Noir staples,from a fashion show where every dress a dame wears is named after a Thriller movies, to Carrel slithering away from his old, respectable imagine, to a new one that fits him like a velvet glove, which he wears between eleven and midnight.
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