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| Juliette Gréco and friend Nyété in MALÉFICES (1962). |
This 1962 film from French director Henri Decoin tends to be regrettably overlooked by histories of the horror film. Based on a 1961 novel by that eminently filmable suspense team Boileau-Narcejac, it is a worthy addition to a filmography that boasts the likes of DIABOLIQUE (1955), VERTIGO (1958), and EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960, the latter not an adaptation so much as a Boileau-Narcejac rewrite), though it is made with such subtlety that one is left somewhat mystified by the experience. What exactly happened here? What actually caused it? The natural or the supernatural?
After those three best-known film credits, the cold, contained thrillers of Boileau-Narcejac continued to be filmed, mostly abroad. 1960 alone saw the production of Serge Friedman's LES MAGICIENNES (based on their 1957 novel); their 1952 novel LE VISAGES DE L'OMBRE was nicely filmed in Britain by David Eady under the novel's translation title of FACES IN THE DARK (1960); and Étiénne Périer directed MEURTRE EN 45 TOURS ("Murder At 45 r.p.m.," based on their 1959 novel À COEUR PERDU, "A Lost Heart," translated into English as HEART TO HEART). These three were primarily exercises in mystery-suspense yet they (and DIABOLIQUE) were also very much the inspiration for the thrillers made by Hammer throughout the 1960s, which are always discussed as an essential chapter of their horror legacy - so why not these?
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| The Kessler Twins are featured on this UK still for LES MAGICIENNES (1960). |
Part of the reason may be their obscurity. LES MAGICIENNES (which starred Alice and Ellen Kessler, the Kessler Twins, who subsequently appeared in Mario Bava's ERIK THE CONQUEROR) was given a UK theatrical release as FRANTIC, while it was a no-show in American until it surfaced in a dubbed version titled DOUBLE DECEPTION circa 1966-1970, then disappeared. MURDER AT 45 R.P.M. fared only slightly better, achieving miserly US theatrical play in 1965 before briefly appearing in television syndication the following year through 1970. For the bilingual, both films are available in France on Gaumont DVD under their original titles.
The same circumstances roughly befell Decoin's MALÉFICES - based on the 1961 novel of the same name, translated as SPELLS OF EVIL - whose grandly evocative title was obliterated by Paramount when they issued the film to US theaters in the summer of 1963 as a B-title under the vague, bland moniker WHERE THE TRUTH LIES (not to be confused with the 2005 Atom Egoyan feature). I was very pleased to discover an excellent quality, widescreen French-language version with hard English subtitles available for viewing or downloading from the website Cave of Forgotten Films.
It is the story of François Rauchelle (Jean-Marc Bory) - a mild, unassuming veterinarian who lives with his wife (Liselotte Pulver) on Noirmoutier Island, which connects to the mainland by a single road known as the Passage du Gois, which is erased at high tide each day. He spends his time tending to farm and domestic animals, until a stranger rouses him from his bed one night with a personal request that he venture out to a mainland address the next day and tend to an ailing leopard. (He has made the personal appearance so he will know the plea was made in earnest and not some sort of fantastic joke.) He makes the trip and finds the leopard domesticated in the care of an exotic-looking woman named Myriem Heller (Juliette Gréco of ORPHEUS and BELPHEGOR fame), who lives with her African servant Ronga (Maithé Mansoura). Rauchelle soon finds himself under the power of Myriem, who has acquired mystic powers after years of study under an African sorcerer, and his marriage - along with his will - begins to disintegrate. His only rudder through this turbulent adventurer is the stranger who introduced them, Vial (Jacques Dacqmine), an authority on black magic who is a rival for Myriem's love and therefore cannot entirely be trusted.
What I found most pleasing about MALÉFICES is that it perpetuates the pensive, off-kilter look of DIABOLIQUE and EYES WITHOUT A FACE and so feels very much part of their atmospheric unity. It is photographed in luscious anamorphic black-and-white by Marcel Grignon, also responsible for the memorable THE BLONDE WITCH (LA SORCIÈRE, 1956, with Marina Vlady), Roger Vadim's LES LIASONS DANGEREUSE (1959) and VICE AND VIRTUE (1963), and the first two entries in Andre Hunebelle's FANTÔMAS trilogy (1964-65). The opening aerial shots of the protagonist's Citroën 2CV puttering across the long stretch of the continental passage anticipate the main titles of THE SHINING, as the night shots of the insect-like vehicle flash us back to Franju - as does Rauchelle's first interaction with the leopard, which is remarkable and not at all what we are led to expect. Juliette Gréco - who was, of course, also a singer who received much publicity for her love life with various celebrities - is perfectly believable as the witchy femme fatale, fed up with living in the mausoleum-like castle of the last man she destroyed and exerting all her influence to tempt our unambitious, untravelled hero into abandoning his marriage and joining her on a romantic voyage to parts unknown. As in all of Boileau-Narcejac's work, we are led into believing many things about our story until its weird illusions are dismantled by cold logic in the final stretch, but this one leaves certain aspects of the uncanny open to question and even belief. Also notable is a nerve-scraping musique concrète score by Pierre Henry that keeps the nervous system leaning forward to the edge of one's seat with an ironic, admiring smile on one's face. In retrospect, MALÉFICES stands out as an antecedent of Damiano Damiani's eerily modernistic THE WITCH IN LOVE (LA STREGHE, 1966), based on Carlos Fuentes' novella AURA - another sometimes overlooked achievement that ranks with the best Euro Gothics. It deserves to be much better-known, so here is your chance.
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| Danielle Darrieux at the wheel in MURDER AT 45 R.P.M. |
Until recently, an acceptable copy of MEURTRE EN 45 TOURS (sans sous-titres) was available on YouTube, but a DVD-R of MURDER AT 45 R.P.M. - from a dubbed 16mm TV print - remains available from Sinister Cinema. All three of the French titles discussed here - LES MAGICIENNES, MEURTRES..., and MALÉFICES - are available from Amazon.fr on Gaumont DVDs.
Nothing would please me more than to learn that a Blu-ray box set of BOILEAU-NARCEJAC movies was in the works. As Juliette Greco's Myriem would know, sometimes putting the thought out there can make it happen.
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