Take a refreshing plunge into classic French Poetic Realism — pre-noir drama with softer edges and a touch of romantic fatalism. A low-rent hotel on a barge canal is the gathering point for a cross-section of quasi- undesirables. Scandals and crimes aside, they’re a touching, human bunch, as performed to perfection by Louis Jouvet, Annabella, Arletty, Jane Marken, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Paulette Dubost and Bernard Blier. Marcel Carné’s show is also a beautiful production, with Alexandre Trauner designs that recreate ‘reality’ on an enormous scale.
Hôtel du Nord
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1139
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Paulette Dubost, Andrex, André Brunot, Henri Bosc, Marcel André, Bernard Blier, Jane Marken, François Périer, Dora Doll, Raymone.
Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard
Production Designer and Art Director: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editor: Marthe Gottie
Original Music: Maurice Jaubert
Written by Henri Jeanson,...
Hôtel du Nord
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1139
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 96 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 23, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Annabella, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Louis Jouvet, Arletty, Paulette Dubost, Andrex, André Brunot, Henri Bosc, Marcel André, Bernard Blier, Jane Marken, François Périer, Dora Doll, Raymone.
Cinematography: Louis Née, Armand Thirard
Production Designer and Art Director: Alexandre Trauner
Film Editor: Marthe Gottie
Original Music: Maurice Jaubert
Written by Henri Jeanson,...
- 8/23/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It’s a big international action epic, filmed in Mexico with a French director. Anthony Quinn is an 18th-century bandit who liberates a Mexican hamlet from marauding Yaqui Indians and a villainous Charles Bronson. Quinn is good, and all the necessary elements are present: fights, handsome scenery and a big battle… but it’s fairly tepid stuff, simplified and prettified. Leave it to Ennio Morricone’s epic music score to bind it all together. With Anjanette Comer, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal and the same fifteen or so well-connected actors that cornered roles in all big Mexican films made with foreign money.
Guns for San Sebastian
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / La bataille de San Sebastian / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Jaime Fernández, Rosa Furman, Leon Askin, Ivan Desny, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,...
Guns for San Sebastian
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 111 min. / La bataille de San Sebastian / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson, Sam Jaffe, Silvia Pinal, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, Jaime Fernández, Rosa Furman, Leon Askin, Ivan Desny, Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,...
- 6/22/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
We can depend on H.G. Clouzot to find people at their most desperate, at their worst. His updated adaptation of Manon Lescaut dissects the trauma of amour fou And the hypocrisy, opportunism and political horror of postwar France. Resistance fighter Michel Auclair and provincial tart Cécile Aubrey are lovers caught in a web of vice and treachery, much of it of their own making. Their desperate escape takes them to an inhuman landscape devoid of mercy. Clouzot may pity these characters, but he sure doesn’t give them a break.
Manon
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1949 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 105 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Available from Arrow Academy 39.95
Starring: Serge Reggiani, Michel Auclair, Cécile Aubry, Andrex, Raymond Souplex, André Valmy, Henri Vilbert, Héléna Manson, Dora Doll, Robert Dalban.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Monique Kirsanoff
Production designer: Max Douy
Original Music: Paul Misraki
Written by Jean Ferry, Henri-Georges Clouzot from the...
Manon
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1949 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 105 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Available from Arrow Academy 39.95
Starring: Serge Reggiani, Michel Auclair, Cécile Aubry, Andrex, Raymond Souplex, André Valmy, Henri Vilbert, Héléna Manson, Dora Doll, Robert Dalban.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Monique Kirsanoff
Production designer: Max Douy
Original Music: Paul Misraki
Written by Jean Ferry, Henri-Georges Clouzot from the...
- 3/10/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Another big title from Henri-Georges Clouzot touches down in Region A. The great director’s first postwar feature dials back the misanthropy — but only a little. It’s a detective tale set in an impressively recreated theatrical milieu, about the tangle of illicit desire that people get caught up in. Ambition, sacrifice, and jealousy figure in a tightly-knit murder scenario — Louis Jouvet’s detective must sort them out, to determine if the vain variety singer Jenny Lamour is really guilty of a heinous crime.
Quai des Orfèvres
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Jenny Lamour / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Louis Jouvet, Suzy Delair, Bernard Blier, Simone Renant, Pierre Larquey, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Charles Dullin, Dora Doll, Christian Marquand, .
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Charles Bretoneiche
Original Music: Francis Lopez
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean Ferry from the novel Legetime defense by Stanislaus-André Steeman
Produced by Roger De Venloo,...
Quai des Orfèvres
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Street Date February 25, 2020 / Jenny Lamour / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Louis Jouvet, Suzy Delair, Bernard Blier, Simone Renant, Pierre Larquey, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Charles Dullin, Dora Doll, Christian Marquand, .
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Charles Bretoneiche
Original Music: Francis Lopez
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jean Ferry from the novel Legetime defense by Stanislaus-André Steeman
Produced by Roger De Venloo,...
- 2/29/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Brigitte Bardot proved her mettle as a dramatic actress in H.G. Clouzot’s strikingly pro-feminist courtroom epic, that puts the modern age of ‘immoral’ permissiveness on trial. Is Bardot’s selfish, sensation-seeking young lover an oppressed victim? Clouzot makes her the author of her own problems yet doesn’t let her patriarchal inquisitors off the hook.
La vérité
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 960
1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 12, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Sami Frey, Marie-JoséNat, Jean-Loup Reynold, André Oumansky, Claude Berri, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Marin. Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Albert Jurgenson
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Simone Drieu, Michèle Perrein, Jérôme Géronimi, Christiane Rochefort, Véra Clouzot
Produced by Raoul Lévy
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
H.G. Clouzot mesmerized audiences with the political outrage of The Wages of Fear and the riveting horror-suspense of Diabolique, but his intellectual,...
La vérité
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 960
1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 128 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 12, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Brigitte Bardot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Sami Frey, Marie-JoséNat, Jean-Loup Reynold, André Oumansky, Claude Berri, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Marin. Fernand Ledoux.
Cinematography: Armand Thirard
Film Editor: Albert Jurgenson
Written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Simone Drieu, Michèle Perrein, Jérôme Géronimi, Christiane Rochefort, Véra Clouzot
Produced by Raoul Lévy
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
H.G. Clouzot mesmerized audiences with the political outrage of The Wages of Fear and the riveting horror-suspense of Diabolique, but his intellectual,...
- 2/12/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
I.Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (1964) is one of the most tantalizing unfinished projects in cinema history. If completed, it would have told a story of extreme jealousy and obsession. The plot is simple—a hotel owner, Marcel (Serge Reggiani), begins to suffer from nightmarish visions in which his young wife Odette (Romy Schneider) appears in various lascivious poses and sometimes erotically interacts with another man. Marcel gradually descends into madness and may, in the end, be driven to kill his wife. Generously backed by Columbia (via the French production company Orsay Films), Clouzot shot in black and white as well as in color, employing three separate film crews, no less than 12 cameras, and a large number of technicians and film craftsmen, including some of the most established industry names of the time. For six months, three cameramen—Claude Renoir, Armand Thirard and Andréas Winding—shot seemingly endless studio tests and,...
- 9/28/2018
- MUBI
Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1942; Eureka!, PG
Often described as the French Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-77) moved from screenwriting to direction during the second world war when the French cinema was closely supervised by the German occupying powers. His masterly second movie, Le corbeau (1943), a bitter thriller about the corrosive effect of poison-pen letters on a small provincial town, was withdrawn for two years after the war, and Clouzot was banned from directing for six months after a rumour spread that the movie had been shown in Germany to expose French moral corruption.
His 1942 debut, The Murderer Lives at 21, a stylish black comedy, suffered no such fate despite the characteristic misanthropy underlying its light surface. A combination of Agatha Christie whodunnit and French roman noir, it features the great Pierre Fresnay as a suave police inspector pursuing a serial killer styling himself "Monsieur Durand". After a tip-off reveals that "Durand" lives at a seedy boarding house in Montmartre,...
Often described as the French Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-77) moved from screenwriting to direction during the second world war when the French cinema was closely supervised by the German occupying powers. His masterly second movie, Le corbeau (1943), a bitter thriller about the corrosive effect of poison-pen letters on a small provincial town, was withdrawn for two years after the war, and Clouzot was banned from directing for six months after a rumour spread that the movie had been shown in Germany to expose French moral corruption.
His 1942 debut, The Murderer Lives at 21, a stylish black comedy, suffered no such fate despite the characteristic misanthropy underlying its light surface. A combination of Agatha Christie whodunnit and French roman noir, it features the great Pierre Fresnay as a suave police inspector pursuing a serial killer styling himself "Monsieur Durand". After a tip-off reveals that "Durand" lives at a seedy boarding house in Montmartre,...
- 6/1/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
"Margot Benacerraf, now in her 80s, only ever made one feature-length film," begins Josef Braun, "but that film remains so extraordinary, so very nearly singular, that it merits an admiration on par with many more prolific and esteemed bodies of work. After studying and gathering numerous influential allies in France and elsewhere, Benacerraf returned to her native Venezuela, specifically to an island no one had heard of, though when was discovered by the Spanish 450 years earlier it was deemed a sort of paradise on account of its abundance of one resource: salt, as valuable back then as gold. We can see the ruins of colonial fortresses erected to protect the island and its salt marshes, once the center of piracy in the Caribbean, during the prologue of Araya (1959). But historical context quickly gives way to the seeming timelessness of hard labour, to Benacerraf's lyrical approach to depicting the life of a community that was,...
- 5/17/2011
- MUBI
By Raymond Benson
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
The Criterion Collection has upgraded and re-released their excellent edition of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (officially titled Les Diaboliques—The Devils—but it’s been known simply as Diabolique in America since it’s 1955 release), issuing the film with a new digitally restored edition on DVD and for the first time on Blu-ray. Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the pair of mystery/thriller writers who provided Alfred Hitchcock with the basis for Vertigo, Diabolique was a project that the master of suspense almost filmed himself. In fact, Hitchcock had bought the rights, but Clouzot snatched them immediately after making The Wages of Fear in 1953. Needless to say, Diabolique is just the sort of thing Hitchcock would have done well—but Clouzot did it exceptionally well.
It’s a truly suspenseful chiller that takes place...
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
The Criterion Collection has upgraded and re-released their excellent edition of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique (officially titled Les Diaboliques—The Devils—but it’s been known simply as Diabolique in America since it’s 1955 release), issuing the film with a new digitally restored edition on DVD and for the first time on Blu-ray. Based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the pair of mystery/thriller writers who provided Alfred Hitchcock with the basis for Vertigo, Diabolique was a project that the master of suspense almost filmed himself. In fact, Hitchcock had bought the rights, but Clouzot snatched them immediately after making The Wages of Fear in 1953. Needless to say, Diabolique is just the sort of thing Hitchcock would have done well—but Clouzot did it exceptionally well.
It’s a truly suspenseful chiller that takes place...
- 5/15/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
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