Cette nuit là...

I must have watched hundreds of film noir until now, including many French ones, and I can tell that "Cette nuit là..." is, in my opinion, a true masterpiece. Directed by Maurice Cazeneuve, this movie tells the story of Jean, artistic director of a fashion magazine in Paris, married to the beautiful Sylvie. They both work for André Reverdy, who openly covets Sylvie, which of course frustrates Jean more and more... Toxic love, big money, sexual tension, intense paranoia and cold blackmail : you get it all with this one. The Altonesque photography provided by Léonce-Henri Burel is in itself a definition of what "film noir" means as a style and perfectly depicts a mesmerizing portrait of Paris in the 1950s. Based on Michel Lebrun's novel titled "Un silence de mort" ("A deadly silence") released in 1957, the construction of the plot and the different characters were designed in such a way that one never gets bored while watching this film. No wonder why director Stanley Kubrick himself praised this French film noir as one of the best movies ever made...

Maurice Ronet is the art director for Jean Servais' magazine. He is married to Mylène Demongeot. Servais wants her. He torments Ronet at work, offers her a couple of million francs. Ronet goes to his house, and when he sees Servais leaving his house, he follows him and kills him. Only it's not Servais. That's when his real troubles begin.

Maurice Cazeneuve's is a film noir of the middle and upper classes of French society, where respectable men have base passions which their money and power allow them to exercise freely... a dark world that recent news stories about Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein show us to still the one we live in. It's certainly drier than most French noir, but still shot in that glistening, shadowy light that mocks beauty, and which turns justice into a matter of luck.

I am surprised that this film is not more widely known, especially if Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of the ten best films in the world. Great actors such as likes of Maurice Ronet, Jean Servais, Mylène Demongeot, cast here...And an interesting story inspired from a Michel Lebrun's novel. A story that, in the beginning, could make you think of UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE. But only in the first part. Not a gangster movie, such as the ones we usually watched in the fifties, but rather an ordinary citizen tale, a character which the audiences could identify in. I don't know the director, never heard of this dude. The plot has already been told in the plot line. Some good sequences, a good photography. An exciting story, yes Sir !! Stanley Kubrick was damn right.

According to IMDb trivia, in 1963 Stanley Kubrick listed this film as one of the ten best of all time (until then); you are not likely to agree. The fact that it was Maurice Cazeneuve's ONLY feature / non-TV film ever may be more telling. The first half is slow and uneventful, but the film picks up energy with the arrival of the polite-yet-slimy blackmailer played by Hubert Noël: even though he is a face unknown to me, whereas the three leads are famous French film stars, he gives the best performance here. There is also a fairly tense climactic sequence. Overall, an average example of its genre. **1/2 out of 4.

This above-average film noir is strangely enough the only film directed by Maurice Cazeneuve. Film is a collaborative medium of course and he is privileged here to have the services of the legendary cinematographer Leonce-Henri Burel and the excellent editor Louisette Hautecoeur. French cinema, in whatever genre, has always been as much about character than plot and ones interest is maintained here by the three principal actors. Both Maurice Ronet and Mylene Demongeot are excellent and really convince as husband and wife whose love for each other helps them face the consequences of his moment of madness. Jean Servais never disappoints. He invariably plays shady characters but always gives them depth and a certain melancholy which makes them somehow appealing. There is also strong support here from Francoise Prevost as an exceedingly sensuous secretary and Hubert Noel as a somewhat neurotic blackmailer. Lots of 'noirish' touches , classy production design by Jacques Chalvet and the charismatic cast make this very watchable indeed.