L'affaire 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.

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.

... but still very strong and complex, because the audience gradually enters in a complex affair seen from different points of view, resulting other dramas. The script construction by Julien Duvivier himself from the novel by Jacob Wassermann is brilliant, it keeps you out of breath as it is more and more violently dramatic. But what is weaker is the choice of the actress Eleonora Rossi Drago who plays Anna Jahn, she was imposed by the Italian production and she is much too dull for this key character, real pity, the audience might not understand why there is so much passion around her. Some do not appreciate Anton Walbrook, too much overplaying, the opposite of Eleonora Rossi Drago, maybe his character was too much in the Noir world of Duvivier. Maybe Duvivier didn't control this movie shot in co-production in Switzerland, as it is said on the french DVD in the interesting documentary on the movie and Duvivier with the actor Jacques Chabassol and the Duvivier specialist Eric Bonnefille, very instructive. We learn about the story between Daniel Gélin and young Ursulla Andress.

Anyway, two years later, Julien Duvivier would direct his absolute Noir masterpiece, "Voici Le Temps Des Assassins".

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.

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.