Il caso Maurizius

I've wondering myself why so low ratings over this finest picture just 6.7 from IMDB's users? It's really is a crying shame, Julien Duvivier wrote and adapted to the screen from the Wasserman the novel "Der Fall Maurizius" about an innocent young man on trial appointed as guilty of a foursome affair for supposedly killed his jealous wife after have knew her younger gorgeous sister, also had as prosecution witness his best friend, worst he was hard-pressed by a heartless and ambitious prosecutor through his hard eloquence blinded the jury to small details that should let them to another outcome instead lifelong imprisonment.

Actually the plotline is quite average, however how Duvivier handles the story is noteworthy lashing out the judicial establishment as a whole, putting the finger in the wound, when the justice commits an error they never re-open the case, in fact they offer a parole whereas the innocent sign as guilty to get the pardon under stringent circumstances, letting the guiltless goes back to civilization as condone a tries survive with the nasty glances of the citizen which he previously coexisted, nonetheless it was a hard mater to stand alone and under such pressure of the society, another warning movie from the master Duvivier as some my favorite French director.

Near masterpiece the highlights certainly is the naïve and proud Daniel Gélin, the unyielding Charles Vanel, the devious and also unwholesome Anton Walbrook in his best performance ever including letting strongly explicit some implying over his nasty behavior on children, girls and also boys, perhaps too commonplace to that period of time!!

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First watch: 2022 /How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9.

Julien Duvivier must be one of the unsung heroes of French cinema; I have now seen 5 or 6 films made by him, and I've liked or loved each and every one of them. "L' Affaire Maurizius", one of his least-known efforts, is an engaging whodunit, with some social commentary added; the flashbacks, and sometimes flashbacks-within-flashbacks, are particularly well-handled. Leonard Maltin gives it two stars, but lists the running time as 70 minutes; my copy ran about 105 minutes, so it's safe to say he saw a very edited-down version. I give mine an easy *** out of 4.

Even the most enthusiastic devotee of the prolific Julien Duvivier would probably concede that his post 1930's films are a mixed bag. Whereas 'Panique' in 1946 and 'Voici les temps des assassins' ten years later are undisputed masterpieces the others are those of a 'craftsman'. The theme of 'L'Affaire Maurizius' is injustice. Thanks to the efforts of his crusading, idealistic son, Charles Vanel as Wolf Andergast is forced to review an eighteen year old case in which as a deputy prosecutor he successfully condemned a man to Life imprisonment.The case turns out to be not quite as clear-cut as it seemed. Vanel is as always superb. Daniel Gelin arouses our sympathy as the wrongfully accused man; Madeleine Robinson does well in a thankless part as a jealous wife and Anton Walbrook is outrageous but mesmerising as a seedy, drunken voluptuary. There is an excellent turn by Jaques Varennes as the examining magistrate. The only weak link is the Anna of Eleanora Rossi-Drago. Her character is so colourless and sexless that one cannot imagine her causing the havoc that she does. This is a bizarre, cynical and deeply pessimistic melodrama that will nonetheless keep you absorbed, the ending of which really packs a punch.

This is one of the most complicated murder cases ever screened, the story is overwhelming in complexities, and what seems to be an easy and self-evident beginning, soon winds itself into an inextricable labyrinth, in which everyone is misled to gross mistakes except the one man who knows and maybe is responsible for it all, the mysterious character of Doktor Warschauer, a pathetic remnant of a once brilliant ace of culture, theatre and learning, reduced to a hopeless remorseful drunk, who doesn't care about anything any more but who is the only one who knows the entire truth although he has perjured himself for it, and he prroduces the very weird definition of justice in the most famous scene of the film, when he confides in his young student (learning English from him) in Lucerne with two ballerinas dancing gaily in the background - a typical Julien Duvivier grotesque but ingenious arrangement. Because of one victim, they are all victims in this, and although there might be some hope after all, the hoplelessly desperate face of Mr Maurizius in tears vanishing in the darkness is the final signature of the film. This is perhaps Anton Walbrook's most interesting and prominent performance, seconded well by the totally matter-of-fact and unsentimental Charles Vanel in his most consistently objective role - his poker face conceals any abysses of regrets and hard experience, maybe also of intolerable lessons, but he lets absolutely nothing out. Eleonora Rossi Drago plays the most important female part, and although her part is small, she turns the tables more than once. It's an excruciating labyrinthal odyssey in the hopeless Kafkaesque nightmare of the entrapment of court procedures, (the author Jacob Wassermann of Vienna, 1873-1934, was himself a Jew,) but Julien Duvivier as usual controls everything with the accomplished hand of a perfect master.

A chance remark by a teacher leads Jacques Chabassol to investigate the case that brought his father, Charles Vanel, to prominence twenty years earlier.

It's another strong movie from Julien Duvivier in which he explores what is now fairly full blown film noir, in a world filled with femmes fatales trapped by men's lusts, prisons in which only the shadows of bars can be seen,bourgeoise Swiss justice a matter of francs and centimes, and the the only way out of prison for Daniel Gélin after eighteen years for a murder he may not have committed...

If it's not film noir, it's very dark magical realism about how there is no repairing the past. With strong and outrageous performances by Madeleine Robinson, and a sometimes heavily bearded Anton Walbrook.