Secrets of the French Police

Long before Ingrid Bergman won her second Oscar for Anastasia RKO did a much smaller production on the subject as expatriate Russian-Chinese Gregory Ratoff tries to pull an Anastasia scam on the Romanoff exiles in Paris. Only he's not nearly as sympathetic a figure as Yul Brynner.

Secrets Of The French Police has Ratoff as a Karloff/Lugosi like villain who is both a scientist and a hypnotist and he uses both to work his plot. The hypnotism is for his subject Gwili Andre who he is trying to pass off as Anastasia.

She's the girlfriend of John Warburton noted cat burglar who is forced into alliance with Inspector Frank Morgan of the Paris PD. Back in the day before he was typecast as bumblers Morgan did play serious roles like this.

Ratoff is appropriately sinister. Warburton who slipped into character roles eventually is a weak romantic lead here. This needed the charm of a Cary Grant.

Still Secrets Of The French Police is not a bad B film from RKO.

My favorite moments in this film are:

• While the Inspector awaits the results of an examination of cigarette ash found at a crime scene he stands a few feet away from this delicate process, smoking his own cigarette dropping who knows how much ash.

• At a murder scene he once again lights up a cigarette and even flicks his spent match onto the floor.

With this kind of law enforcement it's a wonder France didn't descend into criminal anarchy.

This film tries to cross Secrets of the Wax Museum with one of Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse series, and ultimately fails. Some of the editing and set shots are remarkable, but the beginning of the film, about Danton's widow, is a waste of time, and at the end, the pacing of the film just falls apart. The villain who turns young, beautiful women into statues is certainly a delicious and twisted plot turn, but too little is made of it. Nonetheless, even if the reach far exceeds the grasp, this is worth watching if you can find it.

Secrets of the French Police is a horror crime hybrid that muddles early and never really recovers. The story revolves around a plot by an ex patriot Russian (Gregory Ratoff) trying to pull off an Anastasia scam to get his hands on Romanoff cash. Joining forces with a thief, French police set a trap to expose fraud.

As inspector St. Cyr, Frank Morgan chains smokes and forgoes an accent while Ratoff sounds like he is fresh out of the Lugosi school. John Warburton in the key role of the second story man lacks charm and comes across smug in the process negating the decent work done by Gwili Andre as his girl and the phony Anastasia.

Police has some jarringly violent and ghoulish moments along with a cynical grittiness in which the law employs illegal means to solve its case but director Ed Sutherland's anemic direction wavers between genres and ultimately fails at both.

A smorgasbord of in-jokes, tres moderne crime-fighting techniques, and every old-dark-house cliche (but of course, it was made in 1932, so it may have been inventing some of them), the film features Frank Morgan (later to be the Wizard of Oz) as a clever, chain-smoking inspecteur from the Surete who goes up against a wily Russian crook. Murders, staged accidents, bodies dragged from the Seine and an amazingly successful attempt to foil the censor while showing female nudity are all parts of this tale. A suave French thief (with an impeccable Oxford accent)is employed by the Surete to help foil the plot, and an army of Chinese house-servants and a broken-glass wall topping are just some of the dazzling obstacles to be overcome. The "statue" created by the villain will astonish you, as will the gorgeous clothes worn by the beautiful young heroine who could be Anastasia, long-lost daughter of the Romanoffs. This is high camp film-making but done in an earnest style. Really fun.