Der letzte Trumpf

I saw this film when it was shown on BBC2 in 1989, but had absolutely no memory of it, so watched it again today. It's a good-looking, agreeable potboiler, set in a fictitious Latin American country in order to avoid controversy (obviously gangsters couldn't operate at large in law-abiding Vichyite France the way they openly do here).

Closer to a comedy thriller than a straight crime film, and brightly lit for adventure rather than drama by cameraman Nicolas Hayer, 'Dernier Atout' stars Raymond Rouleau as a jaunty crack-shot detective who takes the place of American gangster Gaston Modot in a gang led by dastardly Pierre Renoir. Although sloe-eyed, immaculately coiffed pre-war temptress Mireille Balin slinks through the narrative, her rather puzzling absence from the film's concluding scene is symptomatic of the film's rather casual attitude towards its characters.

Having assisted Pierre Prévert on 'Le Commissaire est un bon enfant', directed a 'short' which he was later to disavow and being replaced after walking out of 'L'Or du Christobal', the cinematic career of Jacques Becker did not really begin until after his release from a P0W camp. He established his reputation as a director of promise with this entertaining pastiche of American gangster films. The plot is somewhat convoluted and the material fails to justify the film's running time but there is plenty of Gallic finesse on display, the cast is eminently watchable and Nicholas Hayer's cinematography provides the 'noir' ambiance.

Becker is merely an imitator here but was to find his voice the following year with the extraordinary 'Goupi Mains Rouges' and whose subsequent output before his death at fifty-four includes three undisputed masterpieces.

...and only for completists.The director's career really began with "Goupi Mains Rouges" the following year:the difference of quality between the two movies is so huge that it seems that Becker learned his job overnight.

Although it takes place in an imaginary country(because of the Occupation?),the screenplay -perhaps Becker's weakest ever- borrows from both American gangsters films and American comedies.Neither the characters nor the actors can sustain the interest till the end.One could,at a pinch ,notice Becker's fondness for manly friendship (he mistrusts women too).

Raymond Rouleau plays a cop that pretends he is in cahoots with the gangsters after drawing straws with a colleague he competes with to be first in his class.He would be the lead in Becker's third -and much better" movie "Falbalas".

Raymond Rouleau and Georges Rollin graduate from the detective academy of the capital of a fictional South American country. They are tied for the highest grade, which is a problem, since who is to be valedictorian? Rouleau suggests a practical test to break th tie, so when a murder occurs in an elegnt hotel, he and Rollin are sent to solve it. About 40 minutes after the movie begins, Rouleau has the solution: the dead man was the most wanted criminal in America, and his girlfriend Catherine Cayret confesses. Since this is a French movie, we can say "Eh bien!" and move on to the major problem: why is the dead man's partner, Pierre Renoir hanging around, what happened to his $400,000, and how many people will he and his associates kill to recover it. Rouleau plays turncoat to find out.

Jacques Becker's movie is aa trange one. It starts out as a light-hearted mystery, but soon we are into desperate gangster territory. We have an incompetent police officer in Noël Roquevert, more interested in keeping his job than doing it. It's not corruption, precisely, and since it's a French film and some South American country where they hold bullfights, no censor is going to get upset. But I kept trying to fit it into some genre, and it simply wouldn't go. The elegant sets -- an Art Deco hotel, and even the stairwells of the police precinct has ruffled curtains -- the disrespect towards authorities, the boyish glee of the new graduates: none of these hang together in any recognizable way. Because it is Becker's first time directing a feature, and he's not working from his own script, I can only conclude this is not really a Becker film; he would follow it up with GOUPI MAINS ROUGE, but not begin to attain a consistent voice until the 1950s. For now, he's a cheap director for hire, and the result is watchable.