Interdit de séjour

The film maker guilty of this one was not a great director and not specialized in crime films, but this one is so typical from the early fifties Paris atmosphere with, first, a music score, that looks very like the one heard in TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI, also written by Albert Simonin; some kind of poor man's Auguste Le Breton or José Giovanni, the great specialists of the underworld and code of honor among gangsters. Here Simonin was the screenwriter whilst the novel which it is inspired from was written by Andre Helena, an even poorer man's Albert Simonin and so on...See what I mean? Helena also wrote many petty hoodlums stories, all taking place in Paris, Montmartre district or South of France, near Perpignan, where this writer was from. So this little crime flick is pretty well made, gloomy, never boring, and the cast excellent too. Good action and gunfight scenes, especially for the climax.

Maurice De Canonge's most estimable works are "Grisou" and "Les Trois Tambours" "Interdit De Sejour" should be restored to favor ,because it is a genuine film noir,in a way many others are not:the hero is a good guy,who works ;when he meets a femme fatale ,his descent into hell will never give him any respite .

An outcast everywhere ,particularly in the normal world in which he used to live in , he tries to find some help in the gangsters' world ,although he was betrayed by his girlfriend's brother , then to become an informer .Sometimes the viewer stops and wonders :"but an innocent guy such as him does not deserve such a raw deal!";this is tragic! The young lad is played by Claude Laydu , a perfect choice ;his peak was Bresson's pitiful priest in "Journal D'Un Curé De Campagne" ;and he was also cast as 'the most miserable schoolteacher in France" in Delannoy's "La Route Napoleon" ;at the time,nobody could play the victim as he used to do.

For all that,and against all odds,the movie (probably because of Albert Simonin's wit)is sometimes very funny ;the clueless lad thinks his love works in the international relations (!) which she does ,in a way ,for she is a whore in two Montmartre bars ,and there were American soldiers in France in the fifties! A young Michel Piccoli is also cast as a gangster ,and Daniel Cauchy Melville will use in "Bob Le Flambeur" plays the hero's evil genius.

Give this flick a chance!

Yes, from beginning to end, "Interdit de séjour" is fast paced, every simple scene is played as an action scene, with lot of movements and fast dialogues by André Tabet (who wrote "la Table aux crevés", "le Piège", "un Témoin dans la ville") adapted by Albert Simonin (who wrote the year before "Touchez pas au grisbi). The other screenwriters are much less known, having worked very few times for cinema. Maurice de Canonge has directed some fine crime movies like "un Flic", "Erreur judiciaire", "l'Homme de la Jamaïque" and "Police judiciaire". Louiguy is the composer of a mouth harp blues, was he influenced by the mouth harp score in "Touchez pas au grisbi"?

The casting, directed energically by Maurice de Canonge, is fantastic, every character is perfect : Claude Laydu as the victim, Joëlle Bernard and Daniel Cauchy as the bad influences to honest Laydu, Paul Frankeur and Robert Dalban at their best as cynical cops, Michel Piccoli as a dangerous and vicious gangster, Pierre Destailles, Henri Crémieux (as the sarcastic judge)... A nice title in French film noir.