Drôle de drame

'Drôle de drame' (1937 - alternative title 'Bizarre, Bizarre'), the second film by French director Marcel Carné, has over time acquired the status of a cult film. Criticized and ignored upon its premiere in the tense years before World War II, it was re-released after the war and enjoyed great success. Since then, every opportunity to re-watch it produces new praise and discoveries of new virtues. Was this film released too early? 'Drôle de drame' uses the French theatrical vaudeville style to create a savory critique of British morals and social tics and combines a parody of detective films with moments of surrealism. Perhaps the fact that Marcel Carné had released 'Les enfants du paradis' and 'Le quai des brumes' in the meantime led the audiences to re-evaluate this earlier movie in his career? Whatever the explanation, 'Drôle de drame', seen 87 years after its filming and first release, provides an opportunity to meet some names that are now legendary, but also a fresh and enjoyable cinematic experience at many moments.

The film is the adaptation of a novel by the British writer J. Storer Clouston, the adaptation being signed by Carné and the eminent poet Jacques Prévert, screenwriter or co-screenwriter of numerous famous French films. The story takes place in London, but it is more of a French version of London, or rather as it would have been represented on a French comedy stage in the first half of the 20th century. We are dealing with serial murders and not very competent detectives from Scotland Yard who solve cases in their sleep, with a Puritan minister and a mysterious crime novelist, with enigmatic disappearances and double identities, with journalists thirsty for sensational news and a milkman in love. The most improbable events follow each other at a rapid pace. Police intrigue and theatrical vaudeville meet in an original mix.

The cast is stellar. Michel Simon appears in a double role alongside Louis Jouvet. The two actors, who were among the superstars of interwar French cinema, did not really get on with each other, but perhaps it was the tension between them that contributed to the quality of some scenes that have become anthological. We can also watch Jean-Louis Barrault, who would become one of the great actors and directors of the French theatre and who was then only 27 years old and dedicated most of his artistic efforts to film, with 5 films in his filmography in each of the years 1936, 1937, 1938. Here he has a secondary, but important and not at all simple, role - a serial killer who also falls in love. Every scene in which he appears is a delight. Satirical arrows at British morals and social formalisms abound. 'Drôle de drame' was and is superb comic entertainment.

A huge international hit in the 30s, I suspect this seems a bit too labored and artificial now to quite captivate a modern audience the way, say, Children of Paradise still does. But the fan of 30s cinema (Marx Brothers and Carole Lombard division) will find lots to like in the collision of disparate styles-- screwball motivations (Barrault plays a besotted madman worthy of Mischa Auer) and Feydeau-farce complications (I won't spoil the delightful way in which Simon, having absconded from home and suspected of a nonexistent murder, is immediately forced to return to his house in disguise); a supposed proper Englishness (the mania for detective tales and the orderly reality beneath them) seen through thoroughly French eyes (which means that mad Gallic passion roils just below the surface). And if you know French cinema, the cast is its own reward-- stern Jouvet, as an increasingly irrational and surreal-acting clergyman, versus shambling Simon (reportedly they hated each other, in any case the clash of styles is perfect), Rosay (of Carnival in Flanders), the handsome Aumont and, most surprisingly, Barrault in an energetically black- comic role 180 degrees from his winsome mime in Children of Paradise. (Note on availability: So far as I know there's no good version of this on tape in the US but there is a very good subtitled French DVD, region 2 only of course.)

There might be like twenty or thirty celebrated French classics that have emerged from the dusty drawers of the pre-war thirties, mostly released in the second half of the decade and belonged to the "poetic realism" genre, classics from such directors as Carné, Divivier and Renoir and carried by actors like Gabin, Jouvet and Arletty. Not that it's a comment on their quality but the number of French comedies from that era that happened to stand the test of time can be counted on the fingers of one hand, even a Disney hand… so only because it's one of a kind, "Bizarre, Bizarre" aka "Drôle de Drame" deserves a more than honorable mention in the Pantheon of French comedy.

The film, directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, is perhaps the only case of screwball French comedy I could recall, and I'm not surprised that it was adapted from a British novel ("His First Offense" by Joseph Storer Clouston), as there's something of British acerbic wit and sly humor that confined to dark comedy in this amusing, although somewhat confusing little gem. But let's be frank, the film isn't as celebrated as other cinematic involvements from Carné, Prévert or Jouvet, French audience might not be familiar with the title of this film but they'd certainly know what we're talking about if we just utter the words "bizarre, bizarre…", one iconic scene is the reason why this film is famous today, it has on a French ear the same resonance than "On The Waterfront" monologue or Travis Bickle's mirror scene.

It's called the 'Bizarre' scene, just utter to a French person or a French movie lover "Bizarre… Bizarre…" and he'll immediately retort "Did I say Bizarre? How strange?" or "How Bizarre" there are many variants but the point is that this film has immediately screwed itself on Pop-Culture and never deserted it, one simple exchange earned it a ticket to posterity, which was pretty common in these days. Indeed, since the rise of the talkies, no French film could become a real classic without "THE" line to immortalize it. Circa 1937-1938, many movies provided some of the most classic quotes of French cinema, "Port of Shadows" with Jean Gabin telling Michèle Morgan how beautiful her eyes were and in "Hotel du Nord" were Arletty delivered her iconic 'atmosphere' rant, both films were directed by Carné but there are many other great quotes from the same era.

The scene is simple and efficient even when taken out of context, but it works exquisitely better when you know the context. Louis Jouvet is an Anglican Bishop named Soper, he leads a campaign against "unholy" crime fiction writers and had just went into a vehement tirade against an unknown pulp fiction writer named Félix Chopel. Unbeknownst to him (and to the general public), the mysterious Chopel happens to be his cousin, the meek and timid botanist Irwin Molyneux, whose affable nature, awkward tics and mannerisms and teddy-bear like appearance contrast with Jouvet eagle-like sharpened eyes and inquisitive tone. His conference is interrupted by local criminal named Williams Kramps (Jean-Louis Barrault) and known as the butcher-killer (Jean-Louis Barrault), he swears to kill Chopel who inspired his much regretted vocation, Molyneux realizes he might blow his cover by acting too scared, but he is, really.

It gets tricky when Soper literally invites himself to his cousin's house and even trickier when the house has just been emptied of the servants tired of the boring routine, and suddenly only inhabited by Chopel's wife Margaret (Françoise Rosay) and his secretary, Eva (Nadine Vogel), who's enamored with a young and handsome milkman named Billy (Jean-Pierre Aumont) whose real talent is to tell stories. We'll later learn that he's the one who give the ideas to Chopel aka Molyneux with Eva as an intermediary. So there are as many secrets, lies and false identities as seeds planted to grow more confusingly comical situations, and finally blossoming in pure comical hilarity where everything gets even more messier for the sake of laughs, but since nothing really tops the iconic "bizarre" moment so let's get back to that scene.

Chopel doesn't want to show his cousin that they're too poor not to afford servants (there's also a heritage subplot in the film), he pretends his wife is absent, but Soper suspects a disappearance, and everything his cousin said leads to a laconic 'bizarre', It all leads to this situation where a pathetic Michel Simon tries to evade the issue, to "drown the fish", like a French idiom says, but it gets fishier for his cousin who doesn't buy his lies and can tell he's hiding something. He says 'bizarre' in a way that became a staple of suspicion where you know something is strange and can't really put your finger in. It's all in the way the line is delivered a mix of sadness and lucidity, it's just floating in the air like a mood setter, and we know this is only the start of something that will escalate… and it does although the film's blurry look and the profusion of characters make it rather hard to get at a first viewing, a second one would be recommended.

Still, like I said, the film peaks with the 'bizarre' moment, there's something so complementary between the two men's acting that it's unfortunate they didn't share more scenes, I read they didn't get along well, but whatever was the reason, I wish the film would have stuck to the spirit of that single scene, it could have been one of these one-location masterpieces à la "Sleuth" and leading to the same finale without the need of romantic subplots, a little less could have been a lot more. I can watch the "Bizarre" scene over and over again, I can tell the same exactly about the film, that the highlight came so early is rather unfortunate… and of course, bizarre.

Spoofs are generally not popular with the masses (except when Crosby/Hope or Abbott/Costello or Woody Allen are doing the spoofing) so it's no surprise to discover there exist few box-office viable spoofs of film noir. (I know people will claim Alexander Mackendrick's 1955 The Ladykillers, but this is actually a marvelous spoof of crime caper movies. Otto Heller's photographic style not only shines brightly into every nook and cranny, but the story always goes for the belly laugh rather than the jugular vein). A notable exception is the Marcel Carné 1937 Drole de Drame, in which one of the finest casts ever assembled – Jouvet, Simon, Rosay, Barrault, Aumont, and the lovely Nadine Vogel (who made only four movies, of which this is her debut) wrestle with a delightfully ridiculous plot that manages to get wilder and wilder as it progresses from pugnacious snobbery through blatant hypocrisy to the most ridiculous cop shop misinvestigation ever presented on a big-budget theatre screen. Schuftann's atmospheric, noir photography and Trauner's nightmarishly sprawling sets rival any similar creations from Berlin or Hollywood. The movie is chock full of bizarre touches, but the one that tickled me best was the sleeping journo, most amusingly played by Henri Guisol (who enjoyed quite a career in French who-dun-its and noir).

Of the seven films written by Jacques Prevert and directed by Marcel Carne I have now seen five - and I have the published screenplay of 'Jenny' their initial collaboration and now the only one I have yet to see. This is the kind of film that brings out the hybridologist in reviewers, the Marx Brothers Meet Mel Brooks type of Screamers and it has to be said that the film does lend itself to that type of journo's trick. Of course any film written by Prevert and directed by Carne is going to be worth seeing whatever the story and whoever the cast. In terms of cast this is a doozy; Michel Simon, Francoise Rosay, Louis Jouvet, Jean-Louis Barrault, Jean-Pierre Aumont, on the surface the cream of French cinema between the wars, but if we stop and look again we realize that what we have here is a series of disparate acting styles so the logical question is what type of story can possibly accommodate this bizarre melange. Answer: Precisely the sort of story Prevert has supplied in which a group of top French actors are transplanted to Edwardian London and given names like Archibald Soper, Irwin Molyneux, William Kramps and, wait for it, Billy, The Milkman. Do we really need a plot after this? Well, in case the answer is yes how about a hypocritical bishop (Jouvet) who gets his kicks denouncing detective fiction (this was in its heyday in 1937, when the film was made, but hardly causing much of a stir in Edwardian England) whilst his cousin (Simon) leads a double life as a timid gardener who moonlights as a best-selling author of detective fiction. When Soper invites himself to lunch at his cousin's London home, the lady of the house (Francoise Rosay) having antagonised the staff to the point of their departure, prepares the meal herself and then, on grounds of rampant snobbery, absents herself for the duration. From this seemingly innocuous move Soper convinces himself that Molyneux has murdered his wife and the scene is set for things to spin in ever widening circles. Still a huge hit in France and shown regularly on TV it has never, to my knowledge, played in England. Seeing it for the first time in 2004 I was completely captivated and drawn into its spiralling plot. 9/10