Jean Faurez's filmography is a mystery : a dozen short documentaries and eight totally different movies (6 in the 40's, 2 in the 60's) from the best ("la Fille en gris", "Service de nuit") to the forgettable (well this "Histoires Extraordinaires..."). When having seen his best movies, I thought "Histoires Extraordinaires..." would be a fine entertainment, but the usual only connoisseur reviewer in french movie on imdb warned that it's finally rather dull. And so it is, "the Tell tale heart" is to forget being so far from Jules Dassin's Version, it totally lacks of frightening treatment, as in the first short. The confrontation of Fernand Ledoux and Jules Berry could have been great, it's just flat in the main sequence of Berry being buried alive. Same for the last short, completely flat, except maybe the final diner scene with guests boozing wine and receiving a huge case of Bordeaux Grand Cru from which appears the lost corpse : is it possible Clouzot has seen this morbid apparition, it really reminds me of Paul Meurisse come back in "les Diaboliques"?
3 Reviews
Poe made in France
dbdumonteil2 April 2008
Two decades before "Histoires Extraordinaires " (spirit of the dead)the anthology by Malle/Vadim/Fellini,Jean Faurez made his own Poe adaptation.One should note that only two of the four segments are by E.A.Poe.The others were written by Thomas de Quincey.
The segments are linked,in an artificial way ,by a scene in a police station where gendarmes are initiating a rookie ,using the hard way: they tell him grim tales ,after a lugubrious song on the cast and credits .
Segment one: It takes place in a girls boarding-school ;a serial killer is at large;guess where he is going to look for his next preys? it's non-scary and even the unexpected end fails totally to convince.
Segment two:"the tell tale heart" ;there is so much voice over you can hardly hear the actors talk.The classic tale which is given a flashback treatment cannot hold a candle to Jules Dassin's version;stick with that one.
Segment three:"the Amantadillo cask" ;things go a little better (it can't be worse) with this sketch which features two earnest thespians ,Jules Berry and Fernand Ledoux.It was Ledoux's sweet revenge after Carné's "Les Visiteurs du Soir "where he was tempted by the devil (Berry) and wound up in Hell.These great actors do not need voice over to be convincing.
Segment four ;the second Quincey tale ,which looks like more a poor man's Agatha Christie 's murder mystery than a fantasy and horror story,except for the final trick which deals with a Château-Margaux Bordeaux wine case .
Except for segment three,not very exciting for the French oldies buff
The segments are linked,in an artificial way ,by a scene in a police station where gendarmes are initiating a rookie ,using the hard way: they tell him grim tales ,after a lugubrious song on the cast and credits .
Segment one: It takes place in a girls boarding-school ;a serial killer is at large;guess where he is going to look for his next preys? it's non-scary and even the unexpected end fails totally to convince.
Segment two:"the tell tale heart" ;there is so much voice over you can hardly hear the actors talk.The classic tale which is given a flashback treatment cannot hold a candle to Jules Dassin's version;stick with that one.
Segment three:"the Amantadillo cask" ;things go a little better (it can't be worse) with this sketch which features two earnest thespians ,Jules Berry and Fernand Ledoux.It was Ledoux's sweet revenge after Carné's "Les Visiteurs du Soir "where he was tempted by the devil (Berry) and wound up in Hell.These great actors do not need voice over to be convincing.
Segment four ;the second Quincey tale ,which looks like more a poor man's Agatha Christie 's murder mystery than a fantasy and horror story,except for the final trick which deals with a Château-Margaux Bordeaux wine case .
Except for segment three,not very exciting for the French oldies buff
Interesting
BandSAboutMovies10 August 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A group of policemen is tracking down the criminals behind three murder cases. There's a cutthroat killing young women, a madman that hid his deformed landlord's corpse in the floor and a wine aficionado who has buried his friend alive.
If you read that and said, "Two of those stories sound like "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado," you're right. One of the other stories is based on "Murder Considered as One of the FIne Arts" by Thomas De Quincey, whose book Suspiria de Profundi inspired, well, you can guess from the title, right? He also wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater. The other story comes from Baudelaire.
I like that this film doesn't try to just be horror, but instead is a police film with the captain trying to frighten the new recruits with a series of stories.
I've watched more than a few Poe movies lately. This isn't the best, nor is it the worst. Luckily, if you get Severin's Tales of the Uncanny blu ray you can watch it and enjoy it along with a fun documentary and a few others movies.
If you read that and said, "Two of those stories sound like "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado," you're right. One of the other stories is based on "Murder Considered as One of the FIne Arts" by Thomas De Quincey, whose book Suspiria de Profundi inspired, well, you can guess from the title, right? He also wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater. The other story comes from Baudelaire.
I like that this film doesn't try to just be horror, but instead is a police film with the captain trying to frighten the new recruits with a series of stories.
I've watched more than a few Poe movies lately. This isn't the best, nor is it the worst. Luckily, if you get Severin's Tales of the Uncanny blu ray you can watch it and enjoy it along with a fun documentary and a few others movies.
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