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Daily Archives: September 20, 2014

Le Corbeau (1943)

Posted on September 20, 2014 | 2 comments

Le Corbeau (The Raven)
Directed by Georges-Henri Clouzot
Written by Louis Chavance and Georges-Henri Clouzot
1943/France
Continental Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dr. Vorzet: You think that people are all good or all bad. You think that good means light and bad means night? But where does night end and light begin? Where is the borderline? Do you even know which side you belong on? [/box]

This brilliant thriller managed to make all sides mad in Occupied France.

Dr. Remy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) came not so long ago to practice in a small French town and specializes in difficult deliveries. He has performed a few where he saved the mother at the cost of the baby, not always the orthodox outcome. He is also very friendly with the elderly local psychiatrist’s young wife, a friendship which her sister roundly disapproves.

People start recieving ugly poison pen letters signed by “The Raven”. They start out as a campaign against Germain, calling him an abortionist and adulterer. The letters build to the point where all the dirty secrets of the townspeople are revealed, escalating to a climax when a patient at the hospital is told by The Raven he has terminal cancer and commits suicide. The town is driven to a kind of mass hysteria. The investigation, led by the psychiatrist who is also a handwriting expert, turns up many suspects. Is it the psychiatrist’s sister-in-law, a cold Puritanical nurse? Is it the young postal clerk who regularly dips into the till? How about the crippled woman Germain has a one-night stand with? Clouzot keeps you guessing until the final five minutes of the story.

Clouzot is a genius at portraying the dark underbelly of life. It’s just a marvel to watch how he can take a simple prop and make it look completely sinister. Although I thought the film dragged a bit in parts, it remained suspenseful. I love Fresnay and all the other performances are appropriately menacing.

According to Wikipedia, Le Corbeau generated controversy from the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church considered the film “painful and hard, constantly morbid in its complexity”. The Vichy press dubbed it the antithesis of the Révolution nationale and demanded it be banned due to its immoral values. The anti-Nazi resistance press considered it Nazi propaganda because of its negative portrayal of the French populace. Two days before the release of Le Corbeau, the German-owned Continental films fired Clouzot.

Personally, I consider this film less an allegory than entirely consistent with the tenor of misanthropy present in all of Clouzot’s work. Somehow that misanthropy only adds to the delicious thrills delivered by the European Master of Suspense. Recommended.

Trailer (no subtitles)

2 Comments

Posted in 1943

Sahara (1943)

Posted on September 20, 2014 | 2 comments

Sahara
Directed by Zoltan Korda
Written by John Howard Lawson, Zoltan Korda, and James O’Hanlon based on an incident in the Soviet Photoplay, “The Thirteen”
1943/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Giuseppe: But are my eyes blind that I must fall to my knees to worship a maniac who has made of my country a concentration camp, who has made of my people slaves? Must I kiss the hand that beats me, lick the boot that kicks me, no! I rather spend my whole life living in this dirty hole than escape to fight again for things I do not believe against people I do not hate. As for your Hitler, it’s because of a man like him that God – my God – created hell![/box]

Made almost contemporaneous with the events surrounding it, this solid if unbelievable combat movie features some good performances only slightly marred by some heavy-handed speechmaking.

Career Army Sgt. Joe Gunn (Humphrey Bogart) and his men are one of the few American outfits training with the British army in desert combat early in the North Africa campaign The three survivors and their tank have been left behind by the retreating British army and are short on water. They meet up with the survivors of a British unit, likewise out of water. Later they pick up a Sudanese British army soldier (Rex Ingram) who is escorting his Italian prisoner (J. Carol Naish) through the desert. The tank manages to shoot down a German plane and when the pilot parachutes out they take him prisoner and the party is complete.

The group slowly warms to the Italian, who is a simple family man, but the German is an unrepentant Nazi who is looking for every opportunity to make trouble. The water situation gets more dire until the Sudanese finally leads them to an old fort with a well. Although there is only a trickle left, this is barely sufficient to keep the group going. Then the well runs dry.

An advance team from a battalion of Germans comes scouting for water. Instead of taking these guys prisoner and hitting the road, Sgt. Gunn asks his men to stay put and try to bog down the Germans to play for time for the British. Despite the 100 to 1 odds, Joe sends the German scouts back to tell their leader that there is plenty of water and the men are willing to trade it for food. When the Germans get there, Joe tells them he will only trade water for their guns and a ferocious battle ensues. With Dan Duryea as a GI, Bruce Bennett as the ranking Brit and Lloyd Bridges as a British soldier who bites the dust shortly after he pulls out his sweetheart’s photo.

Humphrey Bogart is really good in this as a crusty cavalry veteran who treats his tank like he used to treat his horse, calling it Lulubelle and babying it constantly. J. Carol Naish gives the Italian a warm and human portrayal in a role that could have been just a vehicle for some anti-Nazi speeches. The filmmakers made the Sudanese human and heroic as well. I didn’t believe the story for a minute but must admit that it was fairly thrilling anyway. I’m just getting started seeing combat films but I can believe that this is one of the better ones.

Sahara received Academy Award nominations in the categories of: Best Supporting Actor (Naish); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Rudolph Maté); and Best Sound, Recording.