Der ewige Gatte

Although based on Dostoyevsky's novel,and in spite of the Russian names ,Pierre Billon,unlike his thirties colleagues ,did not try to re-create a Russian atmosphere,the story could take place anywhere.

This is Pierre Billon's towering achievement ,the only movie in a rather uneven filmography which includes such estimable works as "Vautrin" "Ruy Blas" "Agnès De Rien" or " Chéri" ,which can be ranked as high as the best of Duvivier and Clouzot with whom he shares here a fascination for the darkness of the human soul .

That was to be Raimu's last part ,and he did leave on a high note ,this man with a derby (bowler hat)is his final triumph! A widower comes to see a former womanizer who is his only daughter's biological daughter ;then begins a cruel game between the two men . Raimu ,for the first and only time in his career ,is almost scary;matching him all the way is Aimé Clarion's old beau , who tries to redeem himself by taking care of the little girl and to relive his youth with a seventeen-year -old maid.In their infernal cat and mouse play,Raimu has always the upper hand but you cannot tell good from evil .

The director works with his camera like a painter does with shadows and light: it's the triumph of studio cinema:the obscure bedroom where Michel is haunted by ghosts from the past ,the dirty alleys where Nicolas roams,stalking his prey,the muddy yard where his daughter plays with the street urchins(in sharp contrast to the country mansion,where the children seems straight out of a Comtesse De Ségur novel)

Outstanding sequences:

-Nicolas ,pretending to hang himself,in front of his terrified daughter;one of the ten most atrocious scenes of the French cinema.

-The same,simulating sympathy for the family of a dead dashing officer.

-The blind man's buff game .

-The reception in the lounge where the self -interested selfish parents (Louis Seigner and Jeanne Marken) "sell" their offspring.

-The sweet Marie (Gisele Casadesus ,now a centenarian ,and still working:"Sous Le Figuier ""La Tête En Friche"aka "My afternoon with Margueritte") comforting Lisa and desperately trying to save her from her doomed fate.

An absolute must.

In Shakespeare's late play 'The Winter's Tale', the character of Leontes observes that should every husband despair of being a cuckold then 'the tenth of mankind would hang themseves.' In this adaptation of Dostoevsky's novella 'The Eternal Husband', the cuckolded Nicolas, having discovered that his late wife had deceived him with a roué named Michel who fathered the daughter he has brought up as his own, sets about wreaking revenge through psychologically perverse means.

This bleak depiction of hatred and of human nature at its ugliest is stylishly directed by Pierre Billon, aided by the gloomy sets of Georges Wakhévitch, the shadowy images by cinematographer Nicolas Toporkoff and Maurice Thiriet's brooding score.

In what was fated to be his final role the magnificent Raimu completes his gallery of unforgettable character studies with his troubling performance as the utterly despicable Nicolas. He had recently been admitted to the Comédie-Francaise and it is only fitting that he is supported here by Aimée Clariond, Louis Seigner and Gisele Casadesus all three of whom were members of that hallowed institution.

Little Lucy Valnor is deeply touching as Nicolas' cruelly treated daughter.

After a dramatically effective final scene with the fragile dandy Michel of Clariond, Raimu's hunched figure walking away into the evening mist is the screen's farewell to one that Orson Welles called 'the greatest actor of them all.'