Tag Archives: The French Had a Name for It

Pre-stardom Jean-Paul Belmondo shines in “The French Had a Name For It” prequel

22 Friday Oct 2021

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Jean-Paul Belmondo and László Szabó in Á double tour (Web of Passion)

“The French Had a Name For It,” Don Malcolm’s festival of Gallic noir returns to San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre, Nov. 12-14, but on Sunday, Oct. 24, he serves up an appetizer with two tribute double bills. In the evening, Malcolm pays homage to the great Jean Gabin with screenings of two of the actor’s best, the 1954 heist film Touchez pas au grisbi (Hands Off the Loot!), and Des gens sans importance (People of No Importance), a 1956 drama limning the affair between Gabin’s middle-aged truck driver and a young waitress (François Arnoul). The afternoon belongs to Jean-Paul Belmondo with two films that capture the actor’s formidable charisma just before he achieved stardom with his breakthrough in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless.

Belmondo’s role is but a small supporting part in Marcel Carné’s Les tricheurs (The Cheaters), a drama about the star-crossed romance between a bourgeois suburbanite (Jacques Charrier) and a hipster existentialist (Pascale Petit). A superb jazz and early rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack that features, among others, Chet Baker, Fats Domino, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, and The Champs propels the action that moves from cafes to the luxurious apartment of one particularly well-heeled member of this demimonde to a club on the Champs-Élysées.

Belmondo makes a striking entrance, rifling through coats at a party, then moves in and out of the action. He rivets the screen in the scenes that he is in – that he is destined to be a star is hardly surprising.

The second feature in the tribute is Á double tour (Web of Passion), Claude Chabrol’s third feature, which begins as the study of a dysfunctional upper-class Provence family before shifting in a murder mystery as Henri Marcoux’s (Jacques Dacqmine) young artist mistress Leda (Antonella Luadi) comes to a bad end. And while Roger (Mario David), the village milkman, is arrested for the crime, there is a whole houseful of suspects at the Marcoux villa to consider.

Belmondo is Laszlo Kovacs – the alias the actor’s character Michel would later adopt in Breathless – tactless, gross fiancé to Henri’s daughter Elisabeth (Jeanne Valérie). He is the man who introduced his future father-in-law to Leda, an old friend. He delights in taunting Elisabeth’s mother Thérèse (Madeleine Robinson) with his boorishness and recognizes that Elisabeth’s classical music-obsessed brother Richard’s (André Jocelyn) is more than simply eccentric. He’s a pig, cheerfully so, but when it comes to toxic masculinity and misogyny he’s a rank amateur compared to Papa Marcoux.

Call this double bill “Baby Steps to Belmondo,” as what both films offer are striking glimpses into what Godard saw when he cast the actor in Breathless. The rough-hewn magnetism is there. It was just awaiting the director who would fully exploit it. –Pam Grady

 Á double tour (Web of Passion), 2:00PM; Les tricheurs (The Cheaters), 3:45PM, Sunday, Oct. 24, Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St, SF. www.roxie.com

The French Had a Name for It 6 brings noir and Aznavour to the Roxie

14 Thursday Nov 2019

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horace-62_01When Charles Aznavour died just over a year ago in October 2018, it brought the end of not just one of the world’s great singers but also an actor of considerable charisma. That quality is on full display in The Fabiani Affair (1962), a tense crime drama that is one of 15 1960s Gallic film noirs screening at The French Had a Name For It 6, Thursday, Nov. 14-Monday, Nov. 18 at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater.

Made two years after Aznavour starred as Charlie, the musician swept up in his brothers’ criminal activities, in François Truffaut’s sublime thriller Shoot the Piano Player, The Fabiani Affair once more casts the actor as a man entangled with his siblings in a violent clash. Aznavour plays Horace Fabiani, one of three Corsican brothers living in Paris and the latest generation to become enmeshed in a feud with the rival Colonna family that dates back to the old country. Horace is reluctant to join in; he has a family and among the opposing set of brothers the Fabianis will battle is their sister’s husband Noel (Raymond Pellegrin). But with the Fabianis’ father (Nerio Bernardi) spoiling for war, Horace really has no choice.

The directing debut of actor André Versini, The Fabiani Affair builds suspense over a long night in Paris as the two sets of brothers alternately hunt for one another. None of them really seem to have their hearts into the fight, but their clash is a matter of family honor and destiny, so they drive on. Versini displays a gift for setting atmosphere with Marcel Grignon’s striking cinematography and Paul Mauriat’s evocative jazz score. Aznavour further amps the tension through his performance as a man increasingly giving himself over to the despair of an untenable situation in a film that is as downbeat as it is suspenseful.

Among other highlight of The French Had a Name for it 6:

Joy House (1964): One of the biggest, sexiest French stars of the 1960s, Alain Delon (Purple Noon, Le Samouraï) stars alongside Americans Lola Albright and Jane Fonda in René Clement’s sly thriller. On the run from gangsters who mean him harm, Delon’s Marc thinks he has found the perfect hideout and a sweet situation when he signs on as chauffer to rich widow Barbara (Albright) and her pretty young cousin Melinda (Fonda). Perhaps Melinda’s obsessive attentions and Barbara’s one-sided dialogue with her dead husband should clue Marc into the idea that his refuge isn’t the oasis from danger it seems. But beauty doesn’t always equate with brains, and certainly not in this delicious little drama.

Le Petit Soldat (1963): Originally shot in 1960 as Jean-Luc Godard’s follow-up to his immortal Breathless, this war drama was banned by French authorities for three years. The director’s sin? Depicting torture and other war crimes in context of the then raging Algerian War. Michel Subor is a photographer in Geneva, Switzerland, who comes to grief at his other job working against the Algerians. Godard’s future wife Anna Karina is the model the photographer falls for in a film as stylistically dazzling as the director’s storied feature debut.

One Does Not Bury Sunday (1960): An interracial romantic triangle is at the heart of this downbeat noir in which Gabonese writer Philippe Valence (Philippe Mory) becomes involved with both an au pair (Margaretha Lundal) and a rich married woman (Hella Petri). Sex and murder interrupt an artist’s brilliant future in a drama that grows ever bleaker as the police (and the walls) close in on Philippe.

Objective 500 Million (1966): Pierre Schoendoerffer’s nifty thriller stars Bruno Cremer as Jean, a disgraced former air force captain sucked into a caper that involves both a beautiful femme fatale (Marisa Mell) and the man (Jean-Claude Rolland) responsible for his disgrace and imprisonment during the Algerian War. His share in the heist of millions could go along way toward fixing what’s wrong with Jean’s life but the possibility of revenge motivates him more in a tense crime drama with an arresting climax that alternates between the Paris-to-Bordeaux flight that is ferrying the cash and confederates on the ground awaiting a big payoff. –Pam Grady

The French Had a Name For It 6, Nov. 14-18, Roxie Theater, 3117 16th Street, San Francisco, $12-$14. http://midcenturyproductions.com

Maigret Steps into Spotlight at San Francisco Fest

08 Wednesday May 2019

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Maigret_Renoir_trio

San Francisco may be gentrifying at a terrifying rate, but at least we’ll always have homicide. Of the movie variety. The City is lucky to be awash in noir festivals: Elliot Lavine’s I Wake Up Dreaming (Elliot’s moved up near Portland, but we hope he hasn’t totally abandoned us), Eddie Muller’s Noir City, and Don Malcom’s The French Had a Name for It, which is teeing up its latest menu of mystery, mayhem, and murder May 10-13 at the Roxie Theater.

Fourteen films will unreel, opening with Z director Costa-Gavras’ 1965 debut feature, The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartiment tueurs), a jazz-inflected thriller starring Yves Montand as the detective investigating a case where a woman’s strangulation on a train is only the beginning of a gruesome spree. It is a fast-paced, involving drama and the perfect film to set the mood for the four-day series.

Malcolm has put together a strong slate. Pick any of the 14 and you won’t go wrong, but I want to make a special plea for three films in the festival: Night at the Crossroads (La nuit du carrefour) (1932) and the closing night double-bill of Maigret Sets a Trap (Maigret tend un piége) (1958) and The Head of a Man (La tête d’un homme) (1933).  Georges Simenon’s great French detective, Commissaire Jules Maigret, the protagonist of 76 novels and 28 short stories published over four decades from 1931 to 1972, remains a popular figure in movies and TV to this day. The French Had a Name for It is screening three of the most memorable.

A long time friend of Simenon’s, since long before the writer even conceived the great detective, Jean Renoir (Boudu Saved from Drowning, The Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game) introduced the cinematic Maigret to the world in 1932 with Night at the Crossroads. His older brother Pierre played the detective, called to a desolate town that consists of a gas station and a few houses, to solve the murder of a jewel thief. Made years before the term “noir” was even coined to describe the genre, of the three Maigret films, it is the most noir of them all. It is there in the atmosphere, so foggy and damp it’s almost tactile, creating an aura of doom. It is there in the rogues’ gallery of suspects that include gas station jockey Oscar (Dignimont, one name only, probably artist André Dignimont) and Germans Karl (Georges Koudria) and Else (Winna Winifried), whose claims of being brother and sister Maigret doesn’t believe. As portrayed by Pierre Renoir, Maigret is a frank investigator, willing to forego social niceties in his quest for the truth—as the unfortunate Else comes to discover. An almost documentary-like car chase adds to the suspense in a thriller that is short, nasty, and efficient.

Julien Duvivier’s (Pepe le Moko) The Head of a Man takes a more psychological approach as Maigret (here played by the great Harry Baur in a wonderful performance) refuses to give up on a case that is apparently solved. Joseph Heurtin (Alexandre Rignault) had to have killed the old lady found stabbed in her bedroom. His bloody finger and shoeprints are all over the murder scene and he’s captured on the run. The slow-witted man admits that he was there to rob the woman but denies his guilt in her murder and won’t talk about any accomplices. Case closed, but Maigret thinks otherwise. Gaston Jacquet as Willy Ferrière, the woman’s nephew and heir, and Valéry Inkijinoff as Radek, an ailing immigrant with a serious chip on his shoulder, are part of the detective’s puzzle. The Head of a Man delights, not just in its central mystery, but also in the cop’s dogged determination to seek justice instead of an easy win and in his uncanny ability to get into the heads of his array of suspects.

The immortal Jean Gabin steps into the legendary detective’s shoes in Maigret Sets a Trap, directed by Jean Delannoy (Obsession, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and co-written by Michel Audiard, A Prophet writer-director Jacques Audiard’s father. Someone is killing women in Montmarte and Maigret and his officers are determined to find the culprit before he can murder again. All clues lead one way, but Maigret follows a different path. In this outing, Maigret could give Columbo a run for his money when it comes to needling suspects into either confessing or putting themselves in a position to be caught in the act. The most stylish of the three films—Midcentury furnishings fans will find a lot of eye candy in one suspect’s apartment—it is also the most buoyant. Maigret is at a low point at the film’s start, wondering if it is time to retire and let someone else solve the case. Watching him recover his mojo and joie de vivre is a joy. Gabin is terrific and so is a mystery rooted ultimately in twisted relationships. Together with The Head of a Man, it is the perfect double bill on which to end The French Had a Name for It, one that will leave you wanting more. –Pam Grady

The French Had a Name for It 5 1/2 , May 10-13, Roxie Theater, 3117 – 16th Street, San Francisco. http://www.midcenturyproductions.com/

Introducing Lemmy Caution at SF Gallic noir film fest THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 4

02 Thursday Nov 2017

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French 4-Constantine

Eddie Constantine looked like the love child of Jack Palance and Ernest Borgnine, a real tough guy. In truth, he was the American-born son of a Russian father and Polish mother who trained as an opera singer. He pursued his career in Europe where he sang cabaret. Then, nearing 40, he switched gears and turned to acting. Cinema buffs know him from Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 dystopian sci-fi/film noir hybrid Alphaville where he played secret agent Lemmy Caution.

But Alphaville was not the first nor the last time Constantine would play Lemmy Caution. In all, he played the character 14 times, the last time only two years before his 1993 death in another Godard film Germany Year 90 Nine Zero. Now, during the Fri Nov 3-Mon Nov 6 The French Had a Name for It 4 French noir film festival at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, is a chance to see Constantine’s Lemmy Caution from the legendary character’s beginning.

Constantine first stepped into Lemmy Caution’s shoes in 1953 in two adaptation of British author Peter Cheyney’s novels, Poison Ivy and This Man Is Dangerous. The French Had a Name for It 4 is screening the latter that opens with news of American convict Lemmy Caution’s prison escape and flight to Europe. And sure enough, wicked charm with the ladies aside, Caution seems for all the world like a bad guy. The multilingual tough guy is certainly fluent in violence and he eagerly enters into a plot to kidnap an American heiress. But people on both sides of the law would be well advised to note that name, “Caution,” and take heed. It’s not so easy to get a handle on just who or what Lemmy is.

This Man Is Dangerous is a terrific introduction to Lemmy Caution, full of actions and plot twists. It is also a great introduction to Constantine and his gruff charm. On the other end of the double bill is another Constantine vehicle, Lucky Jo (1965). This late noir displays a different, more vulnerable side of the actor. As the ironically named titular character, Constantine a petty crook who can’t give up on the life even as every scheme ends in disaster and his confederates abandon him, certain that he is a jinx.

Other highlights of The French Had a Name for It 4 include Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958), starring Jean-Claude Brialy who returns to his home village to find his best friend Serge (Gerard Blain) has become an embittered drunk; The Night Affair (1958), starring the great Jean Gabin as a cop investigating a jazz world murder who falls for a young junkie (Nadja Tiller); Gigolo (1951), starring legendary Arletty as a pimp who brings a young man (Georges Marchal) to debauched ruin; and The Strange Mr. Steve (1957) and Mademoiselle (1966), showing two different sides of Jeanne Moreau, as a sophisticated femme fatale in the former, and, in the latter, an adaptation of Jean Genet story scripted by Marguerite Duras and directed by Tony Richardson, as a school teacher who unleashes evil on her small village and is obsessed with a local woodsman. –Pam Grady

For tickets and further information about The French Had a Name for It 4, visit http://www.roxie.com/ai1ec_event/french-name-4/?instance_id=23567

WITNESS TO THE CITY at Roxie noir fest The French Had a Name for It

13 Thursday Nov 2014

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Temoin

A taxi idles at the curb as Ancelin (Lino Ventura) steps away from the crime scene that he has just created, the car summoned only moments before the murder by the man he’s just killed. The murderer panics and runs away, only realizing later that his behavior called attention to itself. The cabbie will remember him, surely, a witness who must be dispatched before he can talk to the police. That is the set up of Édouard Molinaro’s tense Witness to the City (Un témoin dans la ville), one of the rare Gallic noirs playing Nov.14-17 as part of The French Had a Name for It at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater.

The streets of Paris become a hunting ground once Ancelin is able to identify amiable Lambert (Franco Fabrizi) as the driver who can finger him. What the desperate man fails to realize is the power of these new “radio” taxis that can be marshaled at the first hint of trouble. Lilliane (Sandra Milo), Lambert’s girlfriend is a dispatcher. The cabbies are a loyal bunch and protective of their own. Ancelin soon learns how fine the line is between the pursuer and pursued.

Ventura, who made his screen debut playing a gangster in Jacques Becker’s classic 1952 thriller Touchez pas au Grisbi, excelled in tough guy roles, but in Witness to the City, he proves himself equally adept at playing a sad, strange man motivated by fear. As the movie becomes a chase, the streets of Paris become a trap to be escaped, new danger lurking around every corner. Molinaro’s use of location is striking; this is not picture-postcard Paris, but the gritty, street-level view that becomes all too familiar to Ancelin. Henri Decaë’s moody cinematography and Barney Wilen’s evocative jazz score add to the pervasive sense of doom in this bleak, striking noir.—Pam Grady

To find out more about THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT, read my article at EatDrinkFilms. For tickets and further information, visit roxie.com.