Le père Goriot

The third version of Balzac's classic,after two works in the silent age ;one of the last movies made in the dark occupation days by Robert Vernay ,whose movies were often based on famous novels ,his best effort remaining "Le Comte De Monte Cristo" (two versions : 1942 and 1953) "Le Père Goriot" is Vernay's most ambitious work,because based on a literature masterwork ;the only problem is the length of the movie (hardly 90 min) , considering there are lots of characters,all of them interesting,it's sometimes difficult for someone who is not familiar with the novel to catch up with a sprawling story:in spite of the title,Le Père Goriot is not the main character of a movie which is a microcosm :the luxury residences where the daughters live after their money match and the seedy boarding house where the Père Goriot rents a mean attic after his daughters took from him everything they could steal;this is the triumph of the studio cinema which perfectly recreates the atmospheres of two worlds apart.Pierre Larquey is a pitiful Goriot : we feel that he loves even when the Learesque ungrateful daughters hurt him,his eyes longing for affection ;Larquey is one of the most overlooked French actors (he was also outstanding in Clouzot's "Diaboliques" and "Le Corbeau" ) and he probably found here his lifetime part.

Pierre Renoir portrays a disturbing Vautrin,greedy and criminal,and probably (it has been often mooted) in love with Rastignac:"a man is a god when he looks like you" ;Georges Rollin's Rastignac, a countess's protégé on his way to conquer Paris , delivers his famous last sentence " A Nous Deux "(=let's fight it out ,Paris),not in the graveyard after Goriot's funeral but during a ball;personally I'd rather have Jean Dessailly (here cast as his friend ,the doctor)as Rastignac but there's no accounting for taste ;the supporting cast includes luminaries such as Sylvie ,cast as the rapacious Madame Michonneau.

'La Comedie Humaine', described by its author Honoré de Balzac as 'a natural history' of post-Napoleonic French society, is a panoramic and monumental work with a cast of hundreds, many of whom reappear throughout, prompting Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's remark, 'I wouldn't know where to start.'

One could do worse than to start with 'Le Pere Goriot' which is part of a trilogy featuring Vautrin whose charismatic, seductive and enigmatic persona makes him one of literature's most unforgettable villains. By all accounts based upon Vidocq, a former convict who became chief of Paris police, he had been played by the brilliant Michel Simon in 1943 for Pierre Billon and in Robert Vernay's film he is portrayed by Pierre Renoir who brings to the role what one critic has referred to as his 'air of malevolence'. He is positively Mephistophelean and here the Faust is the young social climber Rastignac of Georges Rollin. The title character whose love for his ungrateful daughters echoes that of King Lear, is touchingly brought to life by Pierre Larquey.

Adaptor Charles Spaak has done well to condense the novel to a running time of just over 100 minutes, the production design of René Renoux is splendid whilst every character is beautifully observed. Looking at this and his earlier 'Comte de Monte Cristo' one wonders why director Vernay is all but forgotten now.

The shameless opportunism and self interest displayed here reflects the behaviour of many during the German Occupation and Vautrin's betrayal by informants could not fail to strike a chord with audiences at the time.

Not only was Balzac a master storyteller but also a keen and incisive observer whose view of humankind is distinctly unflattering whilst his observation that 'at the origin of every fortune lies a crime' is of course, timeless.