L'affaire Nina B.

It was a long way from "Menschen am Sonntag" (Germany,1929) to "Die Ratten" (Germany ,1955).It was a long way from "La Crise Est Finie" (France,1934) to "L'affaire Nina B. " (France ,1961).

Anyway,although a FRench production,"l'Affaire Nina B." is definitely a German movie,even if the lead is Pierre Brasseur.

It is another unfairly overlooked work by Robert Siodmak,a director who took the film noir to its absolute peaks in America ."Nina " is no longer a film noir,although in several respects ,it is.Now the gangsters have been replaced by the war criminals and the spies,the femme fatale (Nadja Tiller replaces Ava Gardner and Yvonne de Carlo)has turned into a whore hired as a secretary .

The cast and credits set the tone: split Germany ;two bits of map which read "DEUT" and "SCHLAND " ,like two pieces of a jig saw,a la Saul Bass For a man like Siodmak,who was driven away from his country when the Nazi rose to power,it meant a lot.

A movie which was ahead of its time,it anticipated the spy thrillers about the cold war .Pierre Brasseur is a blackmailer "specialized" in war criminals.Anyway,all the characters of the movies are "Ratten" (rats):from the corrupt lawyer to the bosses who pretend they help the third world to the pitiful chauffeur,a loser no longer to react to events anymore.

Extraordinary scenes: Brasseur visits one of his " customers" : he tells him about what he "did" in the war: so there were 81 persons killed instead of 80? Who cares?Someone cares : the criminal's seventeen-year old son heard it all.No burst of anger,no tears ,no melodrama,but this boy "who could have been part of the victims" and "who's already heard his school mates talk about his dad's past" cannot take it anymore.

With its use of cinemascope,its icy pictures and its murky atmosphere ,"L'Affaire Nina B." has a deadly charm.

To say that Robert Siodmak's late German films are something of a mixed bag would be an understatement. In this, his second adaptation of a novel by Johannes Mario Simmel, he has employed the stylistic devices of his earlier Film Noirs but alas, despite his unmistakeable visual style, an atmospheric score by Georges Delerue and two charismatic central performances, this Euro mishmash is let down by an indifferent script, lacklustre supporting cast and in the version I saw, truly appalling sub-titling.

It begins intriguingly, loses focus in the middle and builds to a wonderfully ironic finale.

Mesmerising as the monstrous Berrera is Pierre Brasseur and his scenes with classy Nadja Tiller as the wife who loathes him but comes to realise which side her bread is buttered are excellent whilst her final close up is utterly priceless. The character of the ill-used chauffeur is essentially a cipher and is played as such by Walter Giller. There are a few former Nazi characters in the mix, one of whom is portrayed, unsurprisingly, by Charles Regnier.

Not up there with his best, Herr Siodmak has made the most of the material at his disposal.

He eventually returned to America to direct 'Custer of the West' and probably wished he hadn't.