German-owned Continental Films’ first release in Nazi occupied France was this downright peculiar Christmas Murder Mystery, an Alpine Whodunit in an isolated/insular town (KNIVES OUT SANTA?) , the sort of place where everyone knows who’s sleeping with whom, and what you had for dinner last night. It’s also where Harry Baur’s toy & globe maker goes house to house Christmas Eve disguised as Father Noël to check on who was naughty or nice and take a bit of refreshment. But when he doesn’t make it home and a body is found, it caps a series of strange recent events: Baron Big Shot, after ten years abroad, returning to his estate with a touch of leprosy; two saintly souls needing a miracle (Baur’s fair, but housebound daughter/the Baron’s housekeeper with her bedridden boy; the school teacher organizing a disruption to Midnight Mass; the theft of a sacred prayer ring during Church services; a romantic dinner for the Baron & the daughter (he never speaks/she never goes out), etc. Happily, luck and misidentification solve all crimes & problems: Santa wasn’t murdered ,the ring found, the sickly child walks, the girl engaged, faux leprosy a test for tru-love. Director Christian-Jaque and cinematographer Armand Thirard* mix and match real locations and models in amusing ways, and hardly sweat the implausibilities. But any ideas about this being some sort of wartime allegory are tough to buy into.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: *Christian-Jaque, one of those ‘cinema-of-quality’ guys French New Wavers dissed, probably best known for Gérard Philipe’s FANFAN LA TULIPE/’52, but perhaps better in another small town tale, UN REVENANT/’46. While lenser Armand Thirard shows what PÈRE NOËL was aiming at in LE CORBEAU/’43, one of his films with Henri-Georges Clouzot. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/10/un-revenant-1946.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2009/05/fanfan-la-tulipe-1952.html
No comments:
Post a Comment