Joë Caligula - Du suif chez les dabes

Splendid, sparkling black and white widescreen crime caper from Jose Benazeraf. Occasionally resembling a US 'roughie' this is a stylised Movie with, very much, the look of the french new wave. Surprisingly violent with some battle between a bunch of cool kids and the more established crooks and pimps. Whole scenes seem to suddenly jump into action as the cool ones leap into poses. There is a great scene where they dance to a juke box and another when apropos nothing one of the girls imitates a shop window mannequin as she walks by. Always great looking, ever violent, sometimes amusing this also has some wonderful cabaret and striptease sequences. A little uneven and fades towards the end but quite a find and much recommended view.

"Joe Caligula" was banned for several years in France, not for its sexual content (which is mild), but for its violence. It makes an interesting bridge between two revolutionary films of the Sixties, the ultra-stylized A Bout de soufflé (Benazeraf was sometimes called the "poor man's Godard") and ultra-violent Bonnie and Clyde (remember that the authors originally wanted Godard or Truffaut to direct). It obviously has a higher budget than Benazeraf's earlier crime flicks, and has a more mainstream look without sacrificing (for better or worse) his raw eccentricities.

A brash young gang of hoods is knocking over jewelry shops, gas stations and road houses, causing conflict with the established criminal organization. The gang is led by an amoral, image-conscious hipster who may have a thing for his gorgeous sister (à la Scarface) and vice versa. This all leads to reprisals that escalate in brutality.

All the director's trademarks are present -- thoughtful compositions against desolate backgrounds, actors self-consciously posed like Hollywood archetypes, beautiful but treacherous women draped around their macho psychotic men, Crazy-Horse saloon stripteases and a good cat-fight, wonderful jazz/blues/60s-pop tracks, and witty in-jokes for culture demons. Also, a lot of people getting in and out of cars, clumsy continuity, arch (often risible) dialog and zombie-like acting which only add to the formal distancing (not unlike Jean Rollin's modus operandi). What makes this one stand out from the pack is the meticulously planned use of creative violence (even though there was evidence of cutting in the print I saw.) Recommended mainly for specialists looking for something offbeat and personal.

"Joe Caligula" was reportedly forbidden by the censorship at the same time as Jacques Rivette's "la religieuse' ,but not for the same reasons."Joe Caligula" anticipated Quarantino's extreme violence by more than thirty years.That does not make it a good movie for all that,by a long shot.It is actually one of the worst French duds I have ever seen.

The credits go as far as to claim this :If John Ford is Homer (why not after all?the great director compares favorably with the Greek poet) ,then José Bénazéraf is .....(you'll never guess it) Marcel Proust .Well,if it is so,then Ed Wood is Shakespeare .Bénazéraf is known (but only by people who like that kind of stuff) for his porno movies which were to follow in the wake of "Joe" :many scenes of this movie verge on porno anyway: strip tease, nude women in bed ...

Well if Howard Hawks depicted Scarface as some kind of Borgia ,why not Caligula for a young crook?The problem lies in the fact that Joe has absolutely nothing to do with the Roman emperor.Played by the late Gérard Blain,who was a commendable actor when there was a Duvivier,a Chabrol or a Wenders to direct him,but here sank without a trace.Ditto for Ginette Leclerc,who was formerly directed by Pagnol,Clouzot and Duvivier! The rest of the cast is zombie-like ,particularly the female lead Jeanne Valérie .The script is so dismal that the actors often repeat their lines twice ,five times and even more!When the starlet in tears tells the story of her lover (or husband who cares) who was burnt alive (and is still burning,she points out),it is unintentionally highly comic.

The story ? well I shall now come to the question:Bénazéraf pits Joe and his young pack against a bunch of "old" gangsters and their molls. There's no more to say.

That such a turkey can be mentioned in "Guide des Films" ,the Bible of the French cine buff (and granted one star at that!) is beyond me.

And also directed by a film maker who later will dive deep into porn movies, as also did Claude Bernard Aubert, Jean Claude Roy, Eddy Matalon. After viewing this film, I am not surprised. In France, he was considered as a cult film maker. I honestly wonder why.... However this one is rather agreeable to watch. You have to see it to believe it and I think that any movie buff in search of gems should watch it too. It is a porn crime gangster film, very unusual. Besides this film, director José Benazeraf made mostly nudes and the legend says he was very good in it. A curious gem, starring Gerad Blain in the lead role.