Le crime de Monsieur Lange

Delightful! I'm a great fan of Jean Renoir, and I was very pleased to see this early piece as part of the excellent boxed set of 3 now available on DVD. It has its faults, but I love the way that he lets his actors "do their thing" and lives with the resultant somewhat chaotic mis en scene. The characters are great, with Jules Berry outdoing every caddish scoundrel I've ever seen on film (even including Terry -Thomas!). There's so much fun evident in the making of it, the rather slight fairy-story plot fills the bill perfectly, so it's like watching an early Hitchcock like "Young and Innocent". Lots of the same sense of fun finds its way into Renoir's later, more profound pieces like La Grande Illusion and Les Regles du Jeu, and help make those the more human by not being too sententious.

It's a crime drama about unprincipled capitalism set in 1936 in Paris, France. Paul Batala (Jules Berry) is an unprincipled owner of a low-brow publishing company who exploits his female staff sexually and everyone financially. Mild-mannered Amédée Lange (René Lefèvre) works for Batala but also writes Western short stories featuring Arizona Jim. Valentine Cardès (Florelle), the head of the company's laundry, pursues Lange romantically. Batala is in debt to Mr. Meunier (Henri Guisol) and flees Paris on a train that experiences a crash. Batala then fakes his death by changing identities with a priest (Edmund Beauchamp).

The film opens with Lange and Cardès fleeing, and we learn Lange is charged with Batala's murder. Cardès tells the story of events at the inn near the border where they are recognized. Her narrative includes the period after Batala's initial "death," when the publishing company established a successful workers' cooperative that sells Arizona Jim stories. The movie's ending portrays the inn's patrons' decision whether to turn Lange over to the police.

"Le Crime de Monsieur Lange" is a simple story with a clear economic perspective. Social attitudes vary considerably from what Hollywood could portray at the same time. The film is primarily a period piece illustrative of pre-war French cinema. Florelle and Jules Berry are the strongest characters.

This and 'La Vie est a nous' from the same year, mark Jean Renoir's flirtation with Left-wing politics and very much reflect the prevailing mood of the time as the election of the Front Populaire had given the French a feeling of optimism. Suffice to say this euphoria was short-lived as the Socialist/Communist coalition proved utterly ineffectual.

Not only does 'Le Crime de Monsieur Lange' convey it's message with far greater subtlety than its companion piece, it's sheer exuberance is infectious.

Renoir has encouraged his cast to improvise which in conjunction with his use of continuous takes and deep focus camerawork gives the piece both immediacy and spontaneity. There is a distinctly collaborative feel here as many members of the cast as well as brilliant scénarist Jacques Prévert and composer Joseph Kosma belonged to the Left-wing 'October' Group.

The linchpin of the film is the personification of Good vs. Evil in the characters of Lange and Batala, superbly played by René Lefevre and Jules Berry. Lefevre is of course perfect casting as Everyman whilst Berry once again utilises his Mephistophelean persona to great effect and is the perfect combination of villany and charm. This immensely stylish artiste traditionally gave the appearance of improvising which stemmed from his being unable to remember his lines. On the distaff side there are enchanting performances from Florelle who gives a gorgeous rendition of Kosma's chanson and the always fascinating Nadia Sibirskaya, best known for her early films with her husband, director Dimitri Kirsanoff.

Renoir's fluid direction and the commitment of its participants have given us a thoroughly engaging and uplifting piece whilst on a purely technical level, the astonishing 360-degree pan when Lange 'executes' Batala is justly renowned.

This film, shot in less than a month, contains some of the pleasures in Renoir's oeuvre. The fluid camerawork and the social satire have here, as elsewhere, rewards to yield, culminating in the 360 degree shot in the finale. Maybe the rashness accounts for flaws in the one-dimensional characters and the not so successful dramaturgy but the social messages about cooperatives, debt and exploitation are conveyed well.

Most of the film is in flashback and as soon as this gets under way the film seems to move at such a pace I had trouble keeping up and along the way it only gradually dawned on me it was a comedy. So, once I had sorted that out and got used to the bold and challenging edits and dissolves the film was well under way and I was playing catch up. As has been pointed out by others, looking at this today it would seem that more time than necessary is given to convincing that the old boss is bad and that it would have been good to spend more time with the good times. However, we have to allow for the fact this is almost 80 years old and those early audiences would have needed that time to be fully convinced so that the ending could be accepted. Interesting, bold, amusing and entertaining with plenty of fulsome performances.