Is French Noir a redundant term? After all, “noir” is already French. French critics first applied the word to Hollywood films they perceived as dark in outlook, photography, and themes. Critics and film buffs in the US and elsewhere slowly accepted the term and began throwing it around as if everyone grasped its amorphous, terminally subjective meaning.
The French did more than name a style, however. They were making noir films before there was French Noir (or “avant le lettre”, as we say), as proven by the fact that several Hollywood noirs were remakes of French films. Further, the French 1930s wave of “Poetic Realism” was as influential on the Hollywood style as German Expressionism. American noir was partly the love child of these two foreign influences, as abetted by the influx of European refugee filmmakers who successfully invaded Hollywood.
Having provided a label for a certain tendency in Hollywood films, the French continued to construct their own postwar brand of dark, downbeat, terse, vivid, chic, and cynical criminal melodramas, with their own pantheon of stars, writers, and directors. Most of these items have never been widely seen in the US. Happily, that’s changing.
Kino Lorber has been especially active in bringing French crime and suspense films to the US market on DVD and Blu-ray, thanks to “noir” becoming a popular, marketable term. The three films inFrench Noir Collectionand the four inFrench Noir Collection IIprovide injections for the cravings of international noir addicts, and they’re crammed with iconic performers enacting scenarios of mean streets and double-crosses.
It’s time to unpack these goodies. To make it easy on ourselves, let’s go in alphabetical order.
Back to the Wall/Le dos au mur (1958) – Directed by Édouard Molinaro
The skinny about this French noir:In rich, high-contrast black-and-white, a man emerges from a mansion at night and strides toward the camera, which pulls back to reveal the iron bars of a gate. He opens it, and the camera swings right to follow him into his car, all in one shot, as a melodramatic orchestra booms at us. As he drives, the music vanishes into natural street sounds, and the credits ofBack to the Walldisplay through the windscreen as we travel forward. This is night and the city.
Parking at his destination, the man again emerges toward the camera, which now closes in on him as he pulls on gloves. The almost dialogue-free 20 minutes of this sequence will follow his procedure as he seemingly kills a man who’s shaving (the death is elided by editing), wraps the body in a blanket, and drives it to a construction site, where he sets about disposing of the corpse.
Only then, driving home in a worked-up sweat and looking into the camera, does his voice-over start telling us how it happened, and we dissolve to his driving home three months earlier to find his wife snogging with some boytoy. Then comes his twisty revenge plot and a couple of unforeseen curves.
The guilty party in this French noir:Back to the Wall,is the feature debut of director Édouard Molinaro, who’d been making shorts for ten years and would become famous for his comedies. He fully invests in the sleek stylistic language of the twisty thriller. Every scene dazzles with Robert Lefebvre’s snazzy compositions and snaky camerawork. One shot of watching the characters through office windows is particularly thrilling.
Gérard Oury, later a very successful comedy director, plays the rich husband. Even though he’s got more screen time,Back to the Wallultimately belongs to chic, fog-voiced, top-billed Jeanne Moreau as the wife. Yes, the character is cheating on her husband, but Moreau’s face displays such sympathetic sentiments of love, confusion, and suffering that she’s the one we admire. Being stunning doesn’t hurt.
Frédéric Dard, who adapts his own novel, was the most phenomenally popular French novelist of the 20th Century, although he’s virtually unknown in English. His plot forBack to the Wallis on the diabolical side, with twists and grim humor provided by several well-realized supporting characters.Philippe Nicaud and Claire Maurier deliver the major support as the boyfriend and his ex, and more fun comes from Jean Lefebvre and Colette Renard as a private detective and his angry wife.
For more from Dard’s pen, see our next title.
The Beast Is Loose, or The Tiger Attacks/Le fauve estlâché(1959) – Directed by Maurice Labro
The skinny about this French noir:In a pre-credits sequence, a sniper aims his rifle directly at the camera and fires down from his nest. His victim is a bourgeois non-entity coming out of a ruined building. From this moment of chaos and violence,The Beast Is Loosecuts to a busy restaurant owned by Paul Lamiani (Lino Ventura), who’s both an ex-gangster and ex-Resistance hero. The quiet family man is blackmailed and framed by the secret service (the good guys!) into returning to both of his former worlds to infiltrate a spy ring.
All the noirs on these Blu-rays evoke the very recent legacy of WWII in shaping the characters’ lives, and there’s an unusual percentage of people who worked in the French Resistance, butThe Beast Is Looseis especially aware of these histories and how they mark the postwar world. Four elements define that world: the Cold War is a factor in the plot’s McGuffin (the papers! the invention!), the Resistance defines Lamiani’s character, the presence of rich, corrupt Americans signals new Yankee dominance, and a blockhouse on a Normandy beach is a vivid location for a major setpiece of battle and escape.
The guilty party in this French noir:The morally hollow, ambiguous worlds of spies and gangsters are elements of the creative world of Frédéric Dard (Back to the Wall), who created a phenomenally popular series of police-spy novels andco-wroteThe Beast Is Loosewith Claude Sautet.
As a budding director, Sautet was about to star Ventura in one of the classic French gangster films,Classe tous risques(1960). Sautet became an acclaimed writer-director of character studies that feel far removed from such sizzle and violence. Even so, Sautet returned to the genre for one of the great ’70s French crime movies inMax and the Junkmen(Max et les ferrailleurs, 1971).
The satisfying sleekness ofThe Beast Is Loosederives from Dard’s plotting and from director Maurice Labro. Although he specialized in comedies, the late ’50s found Labro moving into spy and crime thrillers, such asTo Catch a Spy(Action immédiate, 1957) andLes Canailles(1960), adaptedfrom a James Hadley Chase novel. He handled several ’60s James Bond knock-offs, which is why it’s important to remember he was already working the genre before the Bond films.
As our sympathetic family man who can be tough as nails, thanks to his hidden underside, Lamiani anticipates Bill Odenkirk‘s Nobody franchise of the last few years. The role is tailor-made for the robust icon Ventura, a former champion wrestler who appears in two other films in these noir sets from Kino Lorber. His career and persona are discussed by critic Simon Abrams in his commentary forThe Beast Is Loose.
The Passion of Slow Fire/La mort de Belle (1961)– Directed by Édouard Molinaro
The skinny about this French noir:The calmest film in the set announces its claims to literary class via the simplicity of white credits on a black background, to the lilting music of Georges Delerue. The original novelist’s name, Georges Simenon, is trumpeted right away, as is the illustrious playwright who wrote the script, Jean Anouilh. AsThe Passion of Slow Firepresents its first calm image of a man with a pipe, we might imagine he’s Simenon’s Inspector Maigret, but this film derives from one of the author’s downbeat psychological studies.
The man is Blanchon (Jean Desailly), a French transplant teaching at a boys’ school in Geneva, Switzerland. He grades papers, attends to his woodworking hobby, and declines his wife’s phone invitation. She wants him at a party with loud friends, but he’s happy going to bed early.
At the same time, an American visitor arrives home from a date. This is Belle (Alexandra Stewart), the 18-year-old daughter of a friend, and she’s been staying with the Blanchons for a couple of months. Blanchon’s voice-over says he’s trying to remember what he did that night. The following morning, Belle is found strangled in her room, and just about everyone is ready to suspect Blanchon.
Yet Blanchon had paid zero attention to the stranger in his house. After her death, he’s haunted by fleeting flashbacks, especially when he finds out that she silently loved him while going out with a bunch of boys. Shaken out of his very comfortable comfort zone, Blanchon begins struggling with emotions of anger and desire he didn’t know he had.The Passion of Slow Firecould be a case study of what happens when a man is hounded by society, or perhaps a revelation of what’s been repressed.
The guilty party in this French noir:Simenon’s 1952 novelBellewas adapted to film asLa Mort de Belle, which means “the death of Belle” and doubles as a pun on the death of beauty. For some reason, U.S. distributors hung the vague titleThe Passion of Slow Firearound its neck, making us think it’s more about love than death. It’s not.
Desailly, who has a long career in French cinema and stage, underplays Blanchon from contentment to bewilderment to a simmering boil.Monique Mélinand plays his wife with weariness and pursed lips. Jacques Monod plays the jolly judge obsessed with nailing him, despite evidence to the contrary.The second-billed Stewart, also seen inTrapped by Fear, shines while barely appearing on screen and saying virtually nothing. She is the siren of lost opportunity. In their own ways, both Belle and Blanchon have wasted lives.
Director Édouard Molinaro, in his third film chronologically among these noirs, channels an early 1960s sleekness comparable to that of Roger Vadim or Louis Malle, as applied to Simenon’s clammy psychology.
Rhine Virgin/La vierge du Rhin (1953) – Directed by Gilles Grangier
The skinny about this French noir:The Rhine Virgin is the name of a barge that travels to the port of Strasbourg, allowing this sun-drenched film to show lots of lovely production value on location while dabbling with noir tropes. Jean Gabin plays a mysterious, taciturn man riding the barge. He’s an object of speculation by our narrator (Claude Vernier). In a curious plot device, the narrator is revealed to be addressing his speech to Genevieve (Elina Laboudette), the wealthy remarried widow of the late shipping owner, and her shady husband (Renaud Mary), who looks as if he’s trying to swallow a live fox.
As is confirmed at about this point inRhine Virgin, Gabin is the thought-dead husband coming back for revenge, and his widow will stop at nothing to keep him dead. The last half hour turns into a whodunit with a jolly police inspector (Albert Dinan), a pretty young woman (Nadia Grey), and a helpful secretary (Andrée Clément). The basic triangle is certainly a noir situation, and there are scenes of shadowy beauty, although we also have elements of clean bucolic romance and redemption.
The guilty party in this French noir:Rhine Virginbelongs to a long string of Gabin vehicles directed by Gilles Grangier. Another example is the next film on our list,Speaking of Murder. Grangier was a prolific and profitable director, andRhine Virginshows him pleasantly in command of his material. He doesn’t lean too heavily on the noir elements of the story, but they’re prominent and nicely balanced with the other material, which is partly reminiscent of Jean Vigo’s barge romanceL’Atalante(1934).
Jacques Sigurd wrote the screenplay from Pierre Nord’s novel. Sigurd’s successful career in French cinema began with a couple of late ’40s noirs for directorYves Allégret. Later, he wrote forMarcel Carné, whose earlier works of poetic realism had been an influence on Hollywood’s noir style. Sigurd’s career deserves more investigation.
Gabin, one of the most beloved actors in French cinema, looks like a stretch of rough pavement. As with Spencer Tracy or Humphrey Bogart, he’s capable of conveying anger, honor, violence, or wounded romance with equal conviction and without being showy. His mere presence conveys a weary sincerity, making him an icon of French gangster and police films. That’s why viewers ofRhine Virgindon’t know whether his character will turn out to be bad or good; he himself doesn’t know. Gabin also stars in the next title in this set,Speaking of Murder.
Speaking of Murder/Le rouge est mis (1957) – Directed by Gilles Grangier
The skinny about this French noir:A motorcyclist on a cobbled Paris street starts his machine and rumbles away, and the camera follows until we pick up a hefty man buying a newspaper at a kiosk outside a bank. He signals to confederates who wave machine guns, heist the couriers’ dough, and take off in a car. To a mournful, jazzy trumpet, the credits ofSpeaking of Murderappear through the windshield of the getaway car as it travels through the streets, for here’s another film with the modern credits-while-driving trope. Speed, jazz, danger, and crime combine to form the trappings of postwar modernity, shot on location.
The men, who include boss Louie the Blond (Jean Gabin) and volatile Gypsy (Lino Ventura), pull into a garage and silently go to work changing license plates, hiding hardware in trapdoors, all the technical procedures observed calmly and with relish. A flash of tension signals the mistrust that will undo this gang after lots of simmer, leading to a climactic, violent heist and a dramatic finalé along a dizzying stairwell. Along for the ride are the leader’s put-upon little brother (Marcel Bozzuffi) and his cool mercenary girlfriend (Annie Girardot).
The guilty party in this French noir:The primary auteur behindSpeaking of Murderisn’t so much director Gilles Grangier (Rhine Virgin) as brand-name novelist Auguste Le Breton, who adapted his own book. Le Breton grew up a ward of the state and hung out with lowlifes. Heroism in the French Resistance during WWII turned him into one of those highly popular and productive crime writers whose name could sell a movie, like Agatha Christie or Georges Simenon. He specialized in the sort of slangypatoisthat turns the subtitler’s job into a crap shoot. Even the French title,Le Rouge est mis, is an untranslatable argot about red lights or shady activity; I might have picked “playing the red”.
Le Breton’s primary accomplishment isn’t the slang but the depiction of gangsters as ordinary people with real lives, families, and day jobs. They’re unglamorous, even middle-class. The leader owns a parking garage, worries about his brother, and lives with their aged mom. Much of the charm ofSpeaking of Murderlies in the populous scenes of vivid character types who gossip, observe, play pinball, go to work, hide guns, grill suspects, mind their business, or stick their noses in.
Le Breton’s accomplice is co-writer Michael Audiard, whose reputation for slangy, witty dialogue abetted the novelist’s ear. Audiard’s busy career in crime screenplays led to writing and directing three of his own murder comedies in the late 1960s. Director Jacques Audiard is his son.
Gabin and Ventura, two of the iconic taciturn tough guys in French cinema, were friends who often co-starred. Fans of French crime need only know that both men are in the same film to buy a ticket. InSpeaking of Murder, Gabin plays the calm, slow burn while Ventura plays a barely contained firecracker who delights in pulling triggers. The characters’ professional partnership can’t disguise that they don’t much like each other.
Trapped by Fear/Les distractions (1960) – Directed by Jacques Dupont
The skinny about this French noir:As with a few other films here,Trapped by Fearopens with the credits projected over a car windshield, as someone is driving at night. In this case, the driver is Laurent (Claude Brasseur), who’s fleeing or joyriding at high speed through Paris. He flees the scene after being accidentally responsible for the death of a motorcycle cop, and suddenly, he’s all over the news.
One of the desultory reporters is Paul (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who realizes Laurent is a buddy from his days in the Algerian War. While the 1950s French noirs feature characters marked by the legacy of WWII and the Resistance, the cutting-edge, the modern 1960s vibe ofTrapped by Fearchannels an ongoing warlargely suppressed in popular culture, almost like a dirty secret.
By coincidence or fate, Paul and Laurent instantly run across each other. Paul tries to hide Laurent and help him get out of France and, ironically or not, into Franco’s Spain. Alas, Paul is forever distracted by his own wandering libido among stunning models played by Alexandra Stewart, Sylva Koscina, and Mireille Darc. Laurent’s ominous plot rediscovers itself in the last 20 minutes.
The guilty party in this French noir:Trapped by Fear, whose more appropriate French title means “the distractions”, is largely written by Paul Bassan from his own novel, and the idea isn’t so much a crime story as a study in modern ennui and irresponsible behavior among the young and self-absorbed. Both Laurent and Paul are presented as swinish, an idea literalized when Laurent must steal food from hogs.
From that angle,Trapped by Fearfeels inspired not so much by Jean-Luc Godard’sBreathless(A bout de souffle), which had just made Belmondo a star in the same year, than by such items as Alexander Mackendrick’sSweet Smell of Success(1957) and Federico Fellino’sLa Dolce Vita(1960), whose shallow anti-heroes dwell in a world of seedy journalism.
Director Jacques Dupont made documentaries, including the Oscar-nominatedCrèvecoeur(1955), about the Korean War battle of Heartbreak Ridge. While he shows little interest in suspense forTrapped by Fear, his ethnographic instincts are turned upon Paris and its denizens, with lots of driving in a world presented as chic, modern, and hard-edged. These parts are more convincing than Paul’s about-face epiphany on his own selfishness, but the film always looks good.
Witness in the City/Un témoin dans le ville (1959)– Directed by Édouard Molinaro
The skinny about this French noir:Possibly the grimmest story of all these titles also takes the prize for the most shots of driving around looking through windshields.Witness in the Cityopens with a scream, as a woman (Francoise Brion) is pushed off a train by her boyfriend (Jacques Berthier). In a strange bit of foreshadowing, he’s involved in a traffic accident on the same night he’s murdered by Ancellin (Lino Ventura), his victim’s husband. Ancellin is spotted leaving the scene by Lambert (Franco Fabrizzi), a cabbie who’s in love with colleague Liliane (Sandra Milo).
While the suspense ofWitness in the Cityderives from Ancellin’s attempts to follow and eliminate his witness, the ingenuity lies in how the plot is organized around the Taxi-Girls service, with its female phone operators and male and female drivers. The unity of the city’s cabbies becomes a powerful force during the climactic havoc wreaked all over the city. This is an immensely populated French noir in which dozens of characters convey a busy sense of a city defined by cars and telecommunication.
The guilty party in this French noir:Molinaro’s direction is even more stylish than inBack to the Wall, and much of that is thanks to photographer Henri Decae, who shoots almost entirely at night and sometimes in fog. You could bask in the moody beauty of the images and pay no heed to the story, though you’d be cheating yourself.
The story is the work of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the team whose novels inspired Henri-Georges Clouzot’sDiabolique(1955) and Alfred Hitchcock’sVertigo(1958), and that’s weird because the films are very different from the books. ForWitness in the City, not based on a novel, they collaborated on the scenario withGérard Oury, star ofBack to the Wall.
Billy Kearns, who often played loud Americans, appears briefly as a loud American. The following year, he more famously became a victim inRené Clément’sPurple Noon (Plein Soleil), also shot by Decae.
Tying-Down French Noir with a Dark, Very Dark, Ribbon
What do we learn from these French noirs of the 1950s and early ’60s? All are in black and white, which pretty much goes with the territory, and they have other common elements. American noirs often use WWII service as a backdrop for their characters’ histories, while French noirs are more deeply invested in that legacy. French protagonists didn’t only fight a war but also survived in a Nazi-dominated country. The legacy of the Resistance to Nazi occupation is part of the fabric among characters and their creators.
If war belongs to their history, driving in fast cars belongs to their present reality. Postwar modernization was defined by the increasing visibility of the automobile, which had become almost a necessity for everyone. Along with that came accidents and tragedies, a highly visible element in the culture. These French noirs are full of people driving, either restlessly or with deadly purpose. The exception is one film about traveling on the water.
It’s a close call, butBack to the WallandWitness in the Citymay be the best of the seven films in terms of style and suspense, and both are directed by Molinaro.The Beast Is LooseandRhine Virginare designed as the most satisfying stories, which may be why they seem the least noirish or fatalistic.Speaking of Murderis straight-up gangsterism, whileTrapped by FearandThe Passion of Slow Firemost aspire to art and social commentary.
Back to the Wall,Speaking of Murder,andWitness in the Cityare grouped together inFrench Noir Collection, Kino Lorber’s double Blu-ray set. The next double Blu-ray set,French Noir Collection II, containsThe Beast Is Loose,The Passion of Slow Fire,Rhine Virgin,andTrapped by Fear. All are in terrific shape, and the films in the second set come with largely fannish commentaries.
The titles range from the quietly effective to the snazzy and terrific, with an excellent cross-section of tropes and icons in each set. Viewers with a yen for crime and suspense in classic modes won’t be disappointed. French cinema has many more such titles awaiting rediscovery, and it’s a great idea to group lesser-known films into attractive packages. Let’s hope for more Gallic examples from those mean boulevards.