Pièges [Personal Column] **** (1939, Maurice Chevalier, Pierre Renoir, Marie Déa, Erich von Stroheim) – Classic Movie Review 5517

Hollywood director Robert Siodmak’s 1939 last French film is a striking romantic thriller starring Maurice Chevalier as Robert Fleury, a charming singing nightclub owner but prime suspect in a serial murder case.

Someone is bumping off young women who reply to the lonely-hearts ads in the newspaper personal columns, and the police persuade the latest victim’s flatmate Adrienne Charpentier (Marie Déa) to be a decoy by answering a series of similar adverts to help them try to track down the killer. She meets and falls for Fleury, but clues suggest he is the killer.

Siodmak tells a very fair mystery with a good cast giving strong performances and an intriguing atmosphere with imaginative camerawork. Though the handling is perhaps not always quite compact or tight enough, it is still taut and exciting enough.

It runs 106 minutes with the US version at only 90 minutes.

Also in the cast are Pierre Renoir as Brémontier, Eric Von Stroheim as ex-couturier Pears, André Brunot as chief inspector Ténier, Jacques Varennes as Maxime, Henri Bry as Oglou Vacapoulos, Catherine Farel as Lucie Baral, Madeleine Geoffroy as Valérie, Milly Mathis as Rose, Jean Témerson as inspector Batol, Mady Berry as the cook Sidonie, Pierre Magnier as l’homme d’affaires, André Numès Fils as le spectateur barbu and Raymond Rognoni as a police inspector.

The screenplay is by Jacques Companéez, Ernst Neubach and Simon Gantillon.

The sets are designed by Maurice Colasson and Georges Wakhévitch.

It is made by Spéva Films, distributed by DisCina, shot in black and white by Michel Kelber, Marcel Fradetal and Jacques Mercanton, produced by André Paulvé and Michel Safra, and scored by Michel Michelet.

It was remade in America as Lured (1947) with Lucille Ball and George Sanders.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5517

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