Retour de manivelle

Peter van Eyck is so drunk he almost gets run over by a car. Fortunately, Daniel Gélin grabs him, then drives him to his estate in van Eyck's Cadillac convertible. Van Eyck offers him a job, and Gélin accepts. Then van Eyck's wife, Michèle Morgan tries to fire him, but fails. Meanwhile, van Eyck gets ousted from his position at his company, and decides to kill himself. As a joke, he cancels the clause in his insurance policy that lets his beneficiary collect even though he kills himself; so Mme. Morgan devises an elaborate plan to convince the authorities that he was killed by his former business associates.

It's tough, sexy, French film noir, with Gélin hot for stony-faced femme fatale Morgan, while carrying on an affair with Michèle Mercier in her first screen role. Everything seems to be working out according to Mme. Morgan's sadistic little plan.... and then inspector Bernard Blier comes to investigate the killing.

There's little that's novel in Denys de La Patellière's film; he was never considered a great auteur, but was a solid commercial film maker in the pre-Nouvelle Vague era. The parts are put together well in that gloomy magical-realism way, the actors are top-notch, and if it runs a trifle long at just shy of two hours, I didn't notice.

I don't remember if, precisely, this film is faithful to the Chase's book, which I have read several times, ( I think it is) but the overall scheme, topic is the same in many of the writer's books. Most of them actually. CHAIR DE POULE or DELIT DE FUITE were also adapted from Chase's stuff and also in the fashion, Chase's style. Michèle Morgan is perfect in the wife character, the flawless femme fatale, and Daniel Gelin the innocent bystander, like you and me, who is thrown in a criminal diabolical scheme of a wife seeking her husband's death, then facing an unexpected issue. Make a suicide, a real suicide, looking like a crime; the reverse scheme of the usual stories. This for obvious reasons, to get the indemnity from the insurance for which a suicide is not accepted to get the dol. A pure classic from Chase, I repeat.

Retour de manivelle (There's Always a Price Tag) is written and directed by Denys de La Patelliere. It stars Michele Morgan, Daniel Gelin, Michele Mercier, Bernard Blier, Peter van Eyck and Clara Gansard. Music is by Maurice Thiriet and cinematography by Pierre Montazel.

Adapted from James Hadley Chase's novel, plot finds Robert Mabillon (Gelin) as a struggling artist who saves Eric Freminger (van Eyck) from a drunken suicide attempt, and promptly gets offered employment as a chauffeur by way of gratitude. Once back at the Freminger residence, Robert finds Eric is a severely depressed man with a host of problems. And then Helene Freminger (Morgan) arrives on the scene, hostile, suspicious but ever so sultry, it's the kick-start of events that can only lead to misery – or worse – for all involved.

As the first American film noir cycle was winding down, a band of French film makers were picking up the barely alight torch and pouring petroleum on it, carrying it with some distinction well into the 1960s. Denys de La Patelliere's Retour de manivelle is a superior piece of French noir, containing all the traits and peccadilloes of its American cousins.

Robert Mabillon instinctively commits a heroic act, his thanks for such a wonderful gesture? Is a kick in the face by fate, where he's thrust into a muddy film noir infected world of deadly passions, suicide, criminal cover ups and a scam so daring it can only lead to more pain and life altering misery.

Sizzle, sizzle, the bitch is here!

As Eric Freminger's life collapses by the day, his alcoholism getting to its final death throe stages, Mabillon is ensnared in Helene's web. When she first slinks into view, brilliantly lighted by Montazel, you just know that Mabillon, and us the viewers, are in hook, line and sinker! She's a grade "A" fatale of the femme variety, a bitch, as cunning as a cat, her beauty and sexuality weapons of mass male destruction. In one scene she sports a leopard skin coat, it's as appropriate as appropriate can be. In another she slowly and seductively walks up the stairs, her sly glances tempting the now hapless Mabillon to the point of no return. The addition of housemaid Jeanne (Mercier another Gallic beauty) half way through the piece, advances the story still further, adding more murky depth to the already simmering broth of doom.

So now we have a suicide and an accident!

As the plot thickens, as the tricksy scam at the pic's core unfurls and plunges all into the hornet's nest, Patelliere and Montazel prove skilled purveyors of the film noir style. The film is consistently shot with shadowy contrasts or isolated lighting techniques, while for the key speech scene given by Eric Freminger the room is bathed in classic Venetian blind slatted shadows, the position of such adroitly filmed by the makers. This room, the study, is a big player in the film, for there's a very distinctive ticking clock lending its aural presence to the human interactions, from beginning to the coup de grace, it can be heard, the inference has to be that time is ticking away for the protagonists, the sound department turning the volume up to ensure it means something.

A brilliant French noir that is in desperate need of more exposure, some crude back projection work stops it from being a 10/10 picture, but this is essential for the film noir noirista, both thematically and visually. For whom the ticking clock tolls, indeed. 9/10

Robert (Daniel Gélin), an itinerant painter passing through Monte Carlo, saves the life of uber-rich drunk Eric Fréminger (Peter van Eyck) late one night and the man offers Robert a job as his companion-cum- chauffeur, much to the displeasure of his icy, elegant wife Hélène (Michèle Morgan). When Fréminger isn't playing sadistic mind games with Hélène, he's either blotto or busy going bankrupt and he tells Hélène she'll only have a couple of hours after he blows his brains out to make the dirty deed look like murder if she wants to collect on a sizable life insurance policy. Fréminger immediately makes good on his threat and after a quick tête-à-tête, Hélène and Robert agree to take the dead man's advice and hide his body in a walk-in freezer until they can come up with a plan. They begin by hiring a pretty young maid (Michèle Mercier) to convince her that the master of the house is a recluse who won't come out of his room but "oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive..."

A deliciously cold-blooded, sexy French noir based on a James Hadley Chase pulp thriller that took its lead from Cornell Woolrich's "The Black Path Of Fear". Woolrich's version first saw the light of day as THE CHASE in 1946 (also starring Michèle Morgan, interestingly enough) but, as usual with J.H. Chase, there's more than enough variational surprises to allow a "twisted sister" to stand on its own and THERE'S ALWAYS A PRICE TAG does just that. A thoroughly jaundiced eye is cast on human nature and Morgan (platinum blonde here a la DOUBLE INDEMNITY's Phyllis Dietrichson) chills to the marrow as the devastating, driven femme fatale. The estimable character actor Bernard Blier is also pitch-perfect as a police inspector who's a bit smarter than he lets on. Cynical and satisfying.

I am sure this adaptatation of James Hadley Chase's 'There's always a Price Tag' will be enjoyed by Chase purists, assuming such beings exist! Director Denys de la Patelliere will never reside in the Pantheon of film 'Greats' but here everything works. The score, production design, editing and cinematography are excellent. Michel Audiard, one of the best in the business, contributes the dialogue. None of the characters is one-dimensional and all of the performances extremely good, notably Michele Morgan as a subtle 'femme fatale' and Peter van Eyck in a sympathetic portayal as her hapless husband. Another excellent performance by Bernard Blier as the detective. Interesting also to see the delighful Michele Mercier in her first credited role. She would once again work with this director in the sixties in 'God's Thunder' when she attempted, unsuccessfully, to break free from the curse of 'Angelique'. There are a few contrivances that are faintly ludicrous such as the man from Lloyds of London strolling in with damning evidence just as the police are trying to pin a motive for murder on the chauffeur, played by Daniel Gelin. This is still however a first class film noir in which typical French finesse and good taste are allied with a characteristically French emphasis on character rather than plot.