Impasse des deux anges

Actress Simone Signoret is the toast of Paris. She has been offered an international tour that her agent says is worth half a million to him. She's turned it down to marry Marquis Marcel Herrand. He's so madly in love with her that he's marrying her without a contract, which means everything is community property. This annoys his sister, whose sons will not inherit anything. She meets the family at a hoity-toity party, where the one person who isn't rude to her makes her feel worse because of his ineptness. Then, on the way home, she meets her old love who disappeared on her, Paul Meurisse.

Maurice Tourneur's last film wavers enchantingly between poetic realism and film noir, with an air of unhappiness lurking over everyone. The year after this movie came out, he was in a bad auto accident. His age made a recovery to work impossible. He died in 1961, aged 85, 48 years after he had entered the film industry.

And however,he had thirteen more years to live when he called it a day with "Impasse Des Deux -Anges " .It is a decent swansong,even though it cannot be ranked among the director's best works ,alongside " La Main Du DIable" "Justin de Marseille" or even his curious " Le Val d'Enfer".But most of the Tourneur 's American period is unknown in his native country,with a few exceptions ("Victory")

It was the first time Simone Signoret had played opposite Paul Meurisse ,and it was not the last time:"les Diaboliques " and Melville's "L'Armée Des Ombres" were to follow ,and those ,particularly the former ,are memorable stuff.

Signoret portrays a music hall artist who is about to marry an aristocrat (Marcel Herrand).In order to enter this chic world completely new to her,she takes French lessons (she learns the subjunctive imperfect ,a tense reserved for snub people).She is presented with a valuable necklace ;her husband tells him so: it was a present from Louis the Fourteeth -no less- to a noble lady of his court. Enter some kind of aging Arsene Lupin (Meurisse) who was once the lady's lover and came to her place to lift her jewel.They leave the aristocrat's house and remember the good old days.Many flashbacks take us back to "Impasse Des Deux-Anges " where they used to love each other passionately.Everything has changed.They make strange encounters :a young girl (Danielle Delorme) who "is what I was a long time ago" says Signoret;then a young man who steals Meurisse's weapon and really turns "gun crazy".

It's difficult to pigeonhole "Impasse des Deux Anges" :a melodrama,a thriller, a comedy? After the viewing ,nostalgia for bygone days lingers .Some kind of Cinderella in reverse ,a Cinderella feeling nostalgic for her years of poverty.

This final film of Maurice Tourneur has a magical, otherworldly feel about it. This is hardly surprising with a dreamlike score by Yves Daubrier, cinematography by Claude Renoir and actors who carry with them an air of mystery, namely Simone Signoret, Marcel Herrand as her current suitor and Paul Meurisse as her former love. Watching this is akin to travelling first class in the best company.

Such a tragedy that the injuries suffered by Tourneur in a car accident effectively finished a career that had begun in 1913. There are worse films than this however on which to bow out!