Duvivier’s Panique

Technically, the Parisian commune of Villejuif has never been a historically Jewish enclave. However, it is the end of the tram line, which still makes it all too fitting for the ill-fated Desire Hirovitch, better known a Monsieur Hire. He is so anti-social, we might speculate he is “on the spectrum” in today’s parlance. Yet, he will be tragically shocked by his neighbors’ hostility and suspicion in Julien Duvivier’s long unseen Panique (trailer here), which opens this Friday at Film Forum in a fresh new DCP restoration.

If old Hire sounds familiar, then you might know him through Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire, another adaptation of the same Georges Simenon novel. Whereas Michel Blanc was a more nebbish, bloodlessly fastidious sort in Leconte’s take, Michel Simon’s original Hire is conspicuously husky, hirsute, and you know . . . foreign-looking. Each seems to cry out to be shunned, which in their own contempt for the ignorant proletariat, a fate both Hires have probably accepted too readily.

Although Duvivier plays down the voyeuristic aspects of Simenon’s story, Hire does indeed first encounter Alice (as she now calls herself) through peeping. At first, she reacts with disgust, but when Hire persistently precipitates “offline” meetings, she and her lover Alfred Chartier decide to frame him up as their fall guy. It is soon revealed Chartier recently bumped off Villejuif’s resident old maid, while waiting for his lover to be released from prison. The murder has the working-class district on edge, but they will be only too willing to pin the crime on Hire. When Alice starts stringing along the awkward lug, she is rather surprised to find she somewhat likes him, but Chartier maintains such a tight Svengali hold over her, she is incapable of backing out.

The plan is simple. Set-up Hire and let the angry mob do the rest. As schemes go, it is pretty elegant in its simplicity and psychologically insightful. This was Duvivier’s French homecoming film after his wartime Hollywood interlude, so it is easy to interpret it as an allegorical indictment of France’s anti-Semitic collaboration. Perhaps to soften the blow, the milieu feels distinctly pre-war, but that ultimately emphasizes how deeply rooted such xenophobic attitudes were within the French social fabric.

It is just painful to watch Simon’s Hire barrel along unaware of the resentments and betrayal simmering around him. He is a tragic figure, sort of the equal opposite of the free-spirited tramp in Boudu Saved from Drowning (the original Down and Out in Beverly Hills), arguably his most recognizable role. Viviane Romance was already an experienced femme fatale, but she makes Alice’s conscience pangs completely convincing, yet hopelessly too little, too late. She has the advantage over Leconte’s Sandrine Bonnaire, in every way. Still, the sly André Wilms certainly distinguishes the later film as the intrepid inspector, whereas all the coppers in Panique are rather colorless government functionaries.

Even by French noir standards, Panique’s criminals are viciously calculatingly sociopaths. The notorious bitterness and archetypal significance of Duvivier highly cinematic climax will surely ring with viewers, even though many will be seeing it for the first time. For too long, Panique has been written about more than screened, due to print quality issues. Happily, it now looks and sounds terrific. Highly recommended for connoisseurs of French cinema, Panique opens this Friday (1/20) in New York, at Film Forum.

Cine-Simenon: A Man’s Neck

Georges Simenon led a colorful life.  There might have been a few women and some fast living.  After the war, he also faced allegations of collaboration, but his defenders always maintained he was too self-absorbed for such matters.  Harry Baur was one of a multitude of actors to play Simenon’s signature detective, whose wartime experience is tragically above suspicion.  Imprisoned and roughly interrogated after ill-advisedly appearing in an early 1940’s German film, Baur either succumbed to injuries sustained or was helped along the way shortly after his release. His biographic details add further tragic context to Julien Duvivier’s A Man’s Neck, which screens during the Anthology Film Archives’ Cine-Simenon retrospective.

Willy Ferrière has a rich aunt, who refuses to die, but a mystery pen-pal offers to help the old dear along for 100,000 francs.  The freelance killer also has a scapegoat lined up to take the fall: the clueless Joseph Heurtin.  Yes, this is the Maigret case Burgess Meredith later adapted as The Man on the Eiffel Tower, but it is simultaneously similar and different in intriguing ways.

As it happens, both films also serve as time capsules of Paris, pre- and post-war.  Not surprisingly though, the earlier French film is darker and somewhat franker than the RKO production.  The stories run along parallel lines, but diverge on key points, such as the complicity of Ferrière’s mistress in Duvivier’s film.  Indeed, there is little innocence per se in this distinctly dark crime drama.

Both Baur and Laughton look like world weary civil servants, but the latter could not help playing the part with panache.  He was Charles Laughton, after all.  In contrast, Baur’s Maigret is a down-trodden bureaucrat often at risk of fading into the background, until roused to outrage by the psychotic Radek.  It is a close call, but in a head-to-head match, Laughton probably takes it by a jowl.

Likewise, Meredith’s Heurtin is a truly unique portrait of a man made vulnerable by his acutely anti-social nature.  Alexandre Rignault’s Heurtin also quite effective, but we have seen such simple-minded hulks before and since.  However, Valéry Inkijinoff’s frenzied and lusty Radek is something else entirely. Franchot Tone exceeds expectations in Eiffel Tower, but the Russian Inkijinoff is truly creepy.

In fact, both are very good films.  Duvivier shows an eye for procedural detail, giving viewers an unromanticized look inside the Paris gendarmerie. While more naturalistic and generally jaundiced in his portrayal of human nature, Duvivier also shoehorns in small, elegantly telling moments, as when Maigret and Radek take time out from their verbal sparring to listen to his Chanson-singing neighbor.

Neck is a lean, mean film noir that packs surprising punch. It is a deeply flawed world, but not one in which moral judgments are impossible.  Recommended by itself or in conjunction with Meredith’s Eiffel Tower (showing separately), A Man’s Neck screens this Saturday (8/10) and next Wednesday (8/14) as part of Cine-Simenon, now underway at Anthology Film Archives.