Entering Decoin's most fruitful period.
dbdumonteil
The precedent movie "le Bienfaiteur" was a timid attempt at a society put down ."Les Inconnus dans la Maison" has two major assets:Raimu,one of the most…
The precedent movie "le Bienfaiteur" was a timid attempt at a society put down ."Les Inconnus dans la Maison" has two major assets:Raimu,one of the most prodigious actors the French cinema has ever had and Henri-George Clouzot ,the future director of such gems as "diabolique" "le Corbeau" or "le Salaire de la Peur "(wages of fear).But it does not explain the success of this work.The whole town,the old house are wrapped in a strange poetry "someone is walking in the attic upstairs the heroine says -No,that must be this old creaking furniture".The first pictures display the saddest town in the world where the rain keeps falling down.Raimu's performance is once more stunning:during one hour ,his part is completely subdued,because he plays a human wreck,who is on the booze all day long.A former lawyer,he called it quits when his wife left him;and now,he lives with his daughter whom he does not seem to love very much.Then he discovers a dead body in his house :the girl and her pack of youngsters are involved .But he acts as like he doesn't care.He agrees to defend the suspect,his daughter's boyfriend.Raimu really plays Lazarus:after attending the first part of the trial in a complete indifference,uttering one word or two ,he rises from the dead and puts the teenagers'parents in the dock.Raimu's performance is really sublime and a lot of actors who intend to play a lawyer should have a look at "les inconnus dans la maison".With this film,Decoin became a great film noir director -he will outdo himself in "non coupable" -In spite of a happy end ,the audience leaves the movie with a bitter taste in the mouth:the whole town is rotten,fathers and mothers have failed ,a subject which André Cayatte will resume in "avant le déluge" (1953).In 1992,George Lautner redid "les inconnus dans la maison" with Jean-Paul Belmondo as the lead.But a remake is a remake ,and taking on a Raimu's part is pure suicide:besides,time had taken its toll and the screenplay which was original in 1942 became mundane fifty years later:the movie looked like some seventies qualité française movie,at a time when drug was the subject à la mode.Another remake was made by Pierre Rouve ("Stranger in the house" )between Decoin's and Lautner's versions ,with James Mason as the lead in 1967.
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★ 8 / 10
Blame the parents.
brogmiller
French Cinema under the German occupation has proved an endless source of fascination for film historians, critics and cinéphiles for reasons that are both…
French Cinema under the German occupation has proved an endless source of fascination for film historians, critics and cinéphiles for reasons that are both artistic and political. Two films in particular made under the auspices of the German-controlled Continental-Film were banned for their supposed pro-Pétainist slant, both of which involved Henri-Georges Clouzot, as the director of 'Le Corbeau' and as adaptor of Georges Simenon's 'Les Inconnues dans la Maison' the previous year which was the second film for Continental directed by Henri Decoin. Neither Decoin nor the film's narrator Pierre Fresnay who starred in 'Le Corbeau' were ever able to shake off the stigma of collaboration. The film's reputation was not exactly helped by its being shown with an anti-Semitic short entitled 'les Corruptueurs' and its murderer being an 'outsider' named Ephraim, subsequently re-dubbed as Amédée. It also raised questions regarding Simenon's racial stance.
For this viewer at any rate Decoin's film is a little short of his best but marks an early attempt to bring Simenon's bleak vision to the screen and the opening scene of a grey, rain-soaked Northern town could not fail to resonate with the understandable gloom felt by the French. It remains however a more than respectable entry in the Simenon filmic canon, due to Clouzot's excellent screenplay and the magnificent performance as Maitre Lausart by Raimu who invests the somewhat pathetic character with a dignity and humanity that ranks alongside his unforgettable Aimable, Chabert and of course, César. He is very much low-key throughout but the sight of him at full throttle in the climactic courtroom scene is a wonder to behold. His impassioned plea for misguided youth as a product of complacent and disinterested bourgeois parenting looks forward to Cayatte's 'Avant le Déluge'.
There have been two remakes, that of Pierre Louve which is mediocre and features James Mason and a pretty good version by Georges Lautner although both Mason and Jean-Paul Belmondo were to find Raimu the toughest act to follow.
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7.0/10
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Fantástica incorporación, recién salida en blu ray, muchas gracias !!!!!!!!