J'irai cracher sur vos tombes

It may be that the nightmarish quality of my memory of this movie is caused by my having seen it at about 2 a.m. one night in New York at one of those very seedy all-night theaters on Times Square while I was waiting for a 6 a.m. train. The American "South" portrayed in the film was as phantasmagorical (and real, in its way) as the vision of the country in Kafka's _Amerika_. As I recall it, the screenplay was quite faithful to Boris Vian's original novel of the same name, and both developed from European stereotypes of American culture, with some probable input from Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell. The acting was barely tolerable, but the filming technique (again, as I remember it after almost 40 years) made it seem appropriate. Altogether this was a startling and powerful experience, obviously memorable, but I am sure that it was artistically very bad. Somehow that suggests that some examples of bad art can transcend their own badness, though the reasons are seldom clear.

When his younger brother is lynched for dating a white woman in Memphis, Tennessee, a light-skinned African-American named "Joe Grant" (Christian Marquand) decides to relocate to a small Southern town to get his revenge on his own terms. More specifically, since his brother's murder was driven by the racist culture in the South during this particular time, his goal soon becomes to have sexual relations with as many local White women as he can. And as luck would have it, the small town he chooses just happens to have a number of young, sexually promiscuous women who soon fall head-over-heels for the new stranger that just arrived. One particular problem, however, is that all of these women just happen to have boyfriends who are members of a youth gang which pretty much controls everything in town--with their leader "Stan Walker" (Paul Guers) being especially ruthless. It should also be noted that Stan just happens to be engaged to an attractive young lady named "Lizbeth Shannon" (Antonella Lualdi) who lives in a large mansion just outside of town and comes from a rich, aristocratic family. To that effect, Lizbeth becomes Joe's prized sexual target. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film was a French production, and because of that, it bears little similarity to the actual culture and mannerisms of the people in the South during this particular time in American history--other than the overt racism, of course. To make matters even worse, the local terrain looked nothing like that part of the American South either. Likewise, the translation from French to English also left something to be desired as well. Be that as it may, although this movie certainly had some potential, the obvious faults just mentioned were much too obvious to be ignored and, for that reason, I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Let me keep it simple. This is one of those films that "looks" depressing from beginning to end, and I don't like depressing films. Granted there is some interesting camerawork by veteran cinematographer Marc Fossard and the jazzy soundtrack by Alain Goraguer is sort of intriguing. However the whole idea of an American film done in French by the French is difficult to digest. It starts out interesting enough as a crude exposé of racism in the American South but degenerates into a sexploitation ode to the legendary superiority of African American virility. That's the only explanation I could come up with after watching the main character, Joe Grant -a black man passing for white- arrive at the fictional town of Trenton, and unleash a veritable sexual revolution among the female population. It is never explained how or why every girl in town wants to get into Joe's pants. After all, the man is only there to avenge his brother's lynching, and does absolutely nothing to cause such a nymphomaniac reaction! That is only one of the many uncertainties that plague the script of "J'irai cracher sur vos tombes". I have never read the Boris Vian novel in which is supposedly based, nor do I intend to ever do so. (For me it is quite enough to enjoy Vian´s musical exploits with his muse Magali Noël). But I digress. Back to the film, there's not much to redeem it, unless you enjoy Trenton's seedy atmosphere, a brief lesbian kiss, a topless beauty swimming in a river, sado-masochism behavior by all, violence, and, of course, Joe's uncalled for sexual magnetism, as played by the extremely virile Christian Marquand. C´est dommage!

I've not read his novel,so I will not argue,but all that I can say is that the film is a complete disaster ;today in France everybody's forgotten all about the movie .Director Michel Gast has made only four movies in total.

The leads ,Antonella Lualdi and Christian Marquand ,had teamed up the precedent year in Astruc's excellent "Une Vie";but Gast left them to their own devices and it has to be seen to be believed.How could we believe Marquand is a black man with a white skin? (Vian's book was a pastiche ,they say)How could we believe that Daniel Cauchy (see Melville's "Bob le Flambeur") and Jean Sorel (Jean Sorel?) are "rebels without a cause "James Dean style?(the electric chair scene takes grotesque to new limits).And this macho racist man played by Paul Guers?And the old man played by veteran Fernand Ledoux ,the best actor in the whole movie,but in his worst part ever.

The script is so poor (I do not speak of the lines,particularly those when Guers tells Lualdi she is restive and he will take pleasure in taming her) it's difficult to catch up with the plot.The form is Nouvelle Vague style complete with jazz with borrowings from the American movies (the ending recalls Lang's "You only live once" and too many chase movies).If it's a plea against racism,then it thoroughly fails in its purpose.

A French-made rumination of American racial tensions, circa the late 1950s, emerges a ludicrous attempt. A remarkable dissonance of plot, character and sentiment overwhelms practically every scene. The juxtaposition of French-language dialogue and the Continental performances are at odds with the subject matter, which focuses on a so-called "light-skinned" African-American, played by badly miscast lily-white Christian Marquand, who tries to fit in with a U.S. town overrun with racist bourgeois and a "Wild Racer"-type motorcycle gang that appear to have been imported from some American-International juvenile delinquency movie. The clashes of acting, stilted dialogue, a strange French version of Americana, and a plot that is meant to be social commentary but emerges as mild exploitation, result in an abject failure. A risque nude swimming scene is a surprise, and was probably the only reason this movie found its way into the international marketplace. A good jazz-infused music score is the singular plus here.