La mano del diavolo

Carnival of Sinners (1943)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Excellent French horror film from director Maurice Tourneur about a talentless painter (Pierre Fresnay) who is given the opportunity to buy a mysterious chest and with it a certain power that will bring greatness and fame. It doesn't take long for the painter to realize that he's actually sold his soul to the Devil and he must try and find a way to get it back. I had never heard of this film until it recently was shown on Turner Classic Movies and afterwards I really couldn't wait to tell others about it. It's really hard to believe that this movie isn't better known because it's certainly one of the best horror films from this period that manages to hold up extremely well and it remains quite creepy. The story of one's soul being sold isn't exactly original but director Tourneur does a masterful job at showing how one could go crazy trying to figure out a way to gain his soul back. I really loved the way the film drew you into the greatness that would come with fame and riches and it also did a great job at showing how difficult it would be to give this stuff up. The film is quite thoughtful in the way it shows the highs and lows of this mysterious box and the finale is just downright chilling to watch. Fresnay is terrific in his role, which requires him to act out various emotions throughout the picture. I thought the actor did a fantastic job and especially during the scenes where he begins to realize the mistake he's made. The supporting cast is equally strong as well. The film has some wonderful cinematography and the use of shadows is quite impressive. CARNIVAL OF SINNERS shows what a talented director can do to a familiar story and in the end this here is certainly one of the better films of the genre and deserves much more attention.

Gloomy and atmospheric French variation on "Faust" and "The Monkey's Paw", brought to a higher level thanks to the stylish direction of Maurice Tourneur. If that surname rings a bell, you are probably familiar with the work of his more famous - and even more talented - son, Jacques Tourneur. When Tourneur Sr. Released "La Main Du Diable", his son Jacques already directed some of the best horror movies in history, like "Cat People" and "I Walked with a Zombie". Nevertheless, Maurice is a respectable craftsman as well, as made abundantly clear by this effort.

Desperate and unsuccessful painter Roland Brissot buys an extremely cheap talisman - a sealed box - from a sneaky Italian restaurant owner, hoping it'll bring him luck and the love of the beautiful Irene who brutally rejected him. Miraculously, Brissot's left hand (although he's right-handed) suddenly paints the most astounding artworks. Under the pseudonym of Maximus Léo, he becomes an acclaimed artist with Irene by his side as the worshiping wife. Life is like a dream for exactly one year, and then a mysterious little old man in black shows up ...

What I mainly like about "La Main du Diable" is how it resembles those brilliant expressionist horror classics from Germany during the early 1920s. Particularly the narrative structure and the dazzling climax seem to come straight out of his wondrous period. The most powerful (and uncanny) moments from the film come near the end, when Brissot confronts 7 men with terrifying masks at a diner table. They all turn out to be previous "owners" of the talisman, and share their stories. The moral is always the same: be careful what you wish for, and greed will bring any man down.

One-handed Pierre Fresnay comes to a second-rate inn on the Franco-Italian border. The guests are suspicious as he tells the story of how he bought a hand from the Devil, a hand that turned him into the greatest painter of the age. He bought it cheap, but he had to sell it to someone else before the Devil came for his soul, and for every day that passed, the price would double. By the time he looked up from his triumphs, who could buy this hand that would turn its bearer into the greatest in his chosen field?

Maurice Turneur had been directing for 30 years by this point, and his silent work was filled with glorious, painterly images. Here he is working in black and white, but his monochrome images are startling in their limning, and the story and performances peerless.

I'm a sucker for Faustian stories, and this one is such a delight. It has an Expressionistic, visual flair to it with charming special effects, and I was impressed that it was made in 1943. It's not a leap to believe that Maurice Tourneur saw in this story a symbol of Vichy France.

The story has been told with so many variations over the years, some before this film but so many more afterwards that it may not feel all that fresh. In fact, it may feel a little like a (very good) 80 minute Twilight Zone episode. I liked how it zipped along with great pace, but managed to get in little bits of humor in along the way, i.e. The painter saying this about the airs he put on: "I cultivated my sloppiness, wore a new dirty shirt each day, carefully mussed my hair and spouted dazzling theories," or the crowd clamoring at the open bar at the gallery opening. I also liked the characterizations of the devil ('le petit homme,' Palau) and the struggling painter (interestingly also derided by his girlfriend as a 'little man,' Pierre Fresnay). Showing the history of the seductive power of the disembodied hand, with the recurring elements of never being satisfied and ultimate ruin, was also a wonderful, symbolic touch.

The tragic and ill-fated Gérard de Nerval left a small but highly regarded body of poetry but it was as a superlative storyteller that he was first perceived by his contemporaries. He had already published a much praised translation of Goethe's 'Faust' and his short story 'La Main enchantée' is a variation on the 'Faustian pact' theme. It has been adapted for film by Jean-Paul le Chanois. To say it is a 'loose' adaptation is an understatement and le Chanois has interpolated snippets from popular Breton tales told to him by his grandmother.

This is undeniably the best of the five films made by Maurice Tourneur under the aegis of Continental Films, created by Herr Goebbels to distract the French public from the minor annoyance of the Occupation. From the very earliest Monsieur Tourneur's films were noted for their pictorial qualities and he employed his astonishing visual sense most effectively in themes of mystery and fantasy. The air of menace that pervades this piece is due to the Expressionist lighting. His cinematographer here is the legendary Armand Thirard whilst the editing by Christian Gaudin (strangely uncredited) maintains the tension. The sets are by Andrej Andrejew, one of the finest scenic designers of German Expressionism. By all accounts, due to the indisposition of the director, it was the assistant director Jean Devaivre, who was responsible for the wonderfully imagined sequence that gave the film its alternative title of 'Carnival of Sinners'.

This film has been seen by some as an allegory of the pact made between Hitler and Pétain and the Devil here, as played by the diminuitive, bowler-hatted Pierre Palau, is a thoroughly prosaic and unpleasant personage who might easily pass as an official of the Vichy regime. This of course is open to interpretation.

The cast is headed by Pierre Fresnay who was to shine the same year in Clouzot's masterpiece 'Le Corbeau', a thinly disguised allegory that got its director into all sorts of trouble. Fresnay is joined again by Noel Roquefort and Pierre Larquey. A small and uncredited role is played by the excellent Louis Salou, moving up the ranks and just three years before his signature role as Comte de Montray in 'Les Enfants du Paradis'. Fresnay's feverish and intense performance as the doomed painter frantically trying to save his soul is magnetic, even by his standards and it is to be regretted that this brilliant artiste, despite being a decorated hero in the previous war, was never able to shake off the stigma of alleged but never proven collaboration. His leading lady in this is Josseline Gael who was to pay a far higher price for her ill-advised horizontal collaboration with a member of the French Gestapo whilst still legally married to actor Jules Berry.

Maurice Tourneur died in 1961, having been forced to retire from filming in 1949 following the loss of a limb in a motor accident. In a career spanning thirty-six years his output is bound to have been variable but he remains one of Cinema's great visual stylists. His son Jacques, in his films for RKO in the 1940's, proved a worthy successor.