Dir. Maurice Tourneur, France, 1944, 82 mins, in French with subtitles
Cast: Albert Prejean, Santa Relli, Jean Brochard, Andre Gabriello
Review by Colin Dibben
Beautiful, nervy, Cecile (Relli) is a frequent attender at the Parisian police station where Inspector Maigret (Prejean) works. His colleagues joke that she must really fancy the older man. Maigret tries to keep his distance, in part because he thinks that her tales of night-time prowlers in the flat she shares with her rich aunt are simply delusional.
But then the aunt is murdered and Cecile disappears. As they investigate, Maigret and his colleagues uncover strange secrets about the dead aunt. They also meet a bunch of disreputable and desperate men, any or all of whom may have committed murder.
Filmed during the dying days of the Nazi occupation of France, this is another surprising contribution – after his The Devil’s Hand – from veteran director Tourneur.
The surprises include Prejean’s physically slight, wiry and agitated take on George Simenon’s famous and famously saturnine detective; the rattling pace; the bright, clean cinematography, which uses sharp shadows and set details to create a visual mood that borders on the noirish, whereas the story is more hardboiled, although very French.
There are lots of striking details here too: a quirky cycling sequence shot on location; a couple of graphic spoken descriptions of injuries, delivered by a jolly medical examiner who really relishes his job; a brief but haunting image of a dead body on a bed in a house, seen from a moving train.
Even though, as the extras inform us, this was made at a time when ‘talent’ was leaving Continental, the studio set up by the occupying forces – pursued by Allied tanks and warplanes, I guess – Cecile is Dead is packed with good dialogue and lovely acting.
Even the smallest parts, such as the overpolite landlady, get dialogue with which they can flex their acting chops and delineate the idiosyncrasies of their characters. This has a weird effect, making villains, cops, victims and bystanders seem very similar in their humanity, despite their differing intentions and actions. Perhaps that is a pragmatic nod to the way things really are?
Definitely worth a watch if you like classic, character driven crime stories.
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