Les Mystères de Paris

"The Mysteries of Paris" was the most notorious and famous of Eugene Sue's three great novels, the second being "The Errant Jew" and the third "The Seven Deadly Sins", in parts his most interesting work. "The Mysteries of Paris" is a kind of investigation of the underworld of Paris, crowded with all kinds of shaggy sordid people, some mutilated and dísfigured, like wallowing in exaggerations of the rogues galleries of Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame de Paris", displaying the same kind of gutter people. There are many people involved in this complicated and over-burderned novel, the principal theme being some noble characters searching for lost children in the underworld, lost by carelessness and misfortunes of fate, and there are a number of dying scenes, usually cocerning remorseful women. One of the most horrible murderer characters in world literature plays a prominent part in this very weird and wacky novel, and he is also dominatring the film in his terribility, starting it with a murder and ending it with another. There are various other crooks as well, even in fashionable salons, while the main lost children finally are found and find each other. Although very criminal and before its time as a thriller, its' a very superficial novel, there is no psycholopgy and no depth of any character, while Eugene Sue concentrates wholly on just making the action as efficient in its outrageous atrocities as possible. There are some excellent tavern scenes though, and the film is very entertaining, considering that it shows people and circumstances of underworld Paris in 1842, that is about 180 years ago in a world very different from ours today, and with its criminal elements much more obvious than they are today.

A French Italian co-production ,this version of Eugene Sue's mammoth novel has undergone lots of changes; it was impossible to transfer a 1000 -page novel to the screen in a ninety -minute film , a miniseries was made in the eighties, a more appropriate choice ; most of the characters were kept ,but they do not always have the same role as in the book .

Rodolphe (Frank Villard) is the lead ,but his role is reduced to the minimum ; the boy he's looking for must have been inspired by François Germain, a secondary character in the book and a farmer's son at that ; Fleur de Marie (Maria) is not the occasional prostitute but only a singer (La Goualeuse) whose songs have nothing Parisian ; the screenplay involves La chouette (La Civetta)(who would not scare a four-year -old) , notary Ferrand (but then again ,the tale was sweetened :he's not luxurious) , Le Chourineur (Squantatore ,played by a black actor,one can wonder why )and Sara , Rodolphe's first flame (without her brother) .The Pipelet concierges were de rigueur.

The screenplay is poor , because it essentially consists of abductions ,which create monotony in the long run .Eugene Sue was a socialist and his exponential melodrama was supposed to ask for a square deal for the underprivileged ; although his style was ponderous and loose ,his plot and subplots thoroughly implausible ,his depictions of the dregs of society were vivid and his gallery of monsters was frightening .... He was against death penalty but his solution makes hair stand on end :to punish Le Maitre D'Ecole (the schoolteacher),he literally blinds him thanks to an operation ; too scary for this watered-down flick.

Directing is flat , low-budget settings do not help ;perhaps a director such as Riccardo Freda could have succeeded in giving this adaptation a sense of mystery which is desesperately lacking, and in painting a really threatening underworld.