Les scélérats

This film was called ' Torment ' in the UK and given an X certificate. This site might like to know that fact, easily found on the BBFC site when you type in the French title. Trivia like this can be helpful. Aptly called in the UK as it is torment to watch. It is directed by Robert Hossein and like the rest of his participation in films that I have seen during my life it is sensationalist and deeply depressing. ' Torment ' is especially bad. The set is a travesty of poverty versus luxury, and Michele Morgan trying to be American and using the English language is terrible. Her acting is threadbare and that goes for the wooden acting of Hossein himself. The only film he was good in was made by Roger Vadim and he had Brigitte Bardot to bring him to life. Others may have other opinions. The plot is trite and tawdry and centres around a bad marriage and a poor girl who lives opposite their rich house who becomes their maid. The only scene that was both risible and unintentionally funny was seeing the maid trample all over Morgan's naked back with her feet. Decadence follows as it always does in such films. I saw no reason for this except to wake up the audience who could well have fallen asleep during this pitiful exercise in cinema.

The Robert Hossein/Frédéric Dard collaboration has often been fruitful:"toi le venin" and the overlooked "monte-charge" were interesting if minor successful films noirs.Such is not the case here.

"Les scélérats" ("the villains")casts Hossein and Morgan as American people living in France after their child's death in a car accident.They are not credible because they speak French without the slightest yankee accent.Robert Hossein barely utters one sentence in English,anyway!This wealthy couple dwells in a luxury house;across the street ,lives a French poor couple whose girl is hired as a maid by the posh people.Then the screenplay never gets off the ground.Morgan drinks ,drinks and drinks again to forget,Hossein suffers and the maid watches and of course falls in love with..well you guess it!

It's 1960,folks,and the new wave happened!So there's the obligatory endless party where the guests drink,dance and kiss,filmed in a "modern" way (see "la notte" and "l'avventura" (Antonioni) "les cousins" (Chabrol) and even "les tricheurs "(Carné)).

This is a very disappointing bore.Besides, a voice-over comments on everything the characters do,as if the audience is not able to fathom the profoundness of their psychology.

A rich American couple living in a nice house with large windows and in front of their house there is an old building where a father, a mother and a daughter are observing them: the daughter will enter in the life of the American couple: this could be a good story !! But something doesn't convinced me in this film: maybe there was too much attention on the character of Thelma Rooland, who drinks and drinks again , on this couple in crisis.So the film becomes slow and quite boring. Nevertheless the performances of Perrette Pradier ,Robert Hossein and Michèle Morgan are good.

There are some films which although not entirely dreadful are ones that you are in no hurry to see again. This is one of them. There is some good cinematography here and Louisette Hautecoeur's editing, especially that of the party scene, is commendable. Adapted from his novel by Frederic Dard this film simply fails to grip. The Yoolands, played by Robert Hossein and Michele Morgan, have been torn apart by the death of their son but one wonders how such a mis-matched couple got together in the first place. The weakest link however is the score by Hossein's father Andre. It is both irritating and intrusive. The best film directors possess a sense of music and the best film composers a sense of drama. Both father and son are sadly deficient here in these respects. Michele Morgan is always good value but even she cannot keep this turgid drama afloat.