Les Enfants Terribles **** (1950, Nicole Stéphane, Edouard Dermithe, Renée Cosima) – Classic Movie Review 3801

French film noir movie-maker Jean-Pierre Melville is an unexpected choice as writer-director for this surrealist and poetic 1950 film version of Jean Cocteau’s 1929 novel about the extremely odd relationship of a teenage brother and sister, the siblings Paul and Elisabeth, which drives them on to suicide.

But Melville knows exactly how to bring the right steamy, claustrophobic, dark atmosphere to the piece, and be faithful to the original while bringing out touches of his own personal style.

Nicole Stéphane and Cocteau’s friend Edouard Dermithe are ideal interpreters of the piece, looking right and giving mesmeric performances, even if Stéphane at 27 and Dermithe at 25 were by then both really far too old for their parts.

It is filmed inexpensively on the stage of a Paris theatre, but it works beautifully, as shot in black and white by Henri Decaë.

Cocteau is the narrator of the film, at one point quoting from Macbeth ‘All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand’ when Elisabeth is looking at her hands. Cocteau took over directing for a day when Melville was sick, following his instructions exactly in eight shots supposedly of a summer’s day but filmed in rainy mid-winter.

Paul Donneau’s score and the Antonio Vivaldi and J-S Bach soundtrack help to create the right magical atmosphere.

Also in the cast are Renée Cosima, Jacques Bernard, Roger Gaillard and Melvyn Martin.

Melville’s first film, Le Silence de la Mer (1949), caught the eye of Cocteau, who hired him to direct the film.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3801

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