The Tenant [Le Locataire] **** (1976, Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet, Lila Kedrova) – Classic Movie Review 7486

After the Hollywood sheen of his masterworks Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, director Roman Polanski returns to a far smaller canvas in the compelling 1976 paranoia psychological suspense thriller The Tenant, about Trelkovsky (played by the director himself), a man haunted by his Paris apartment’s previous tenant, a female suicide victim whose role he gradually adopts.

Though flawed by an occasional imbalance in tone and an overblown finale, The Tenant [Le Locataire] is still a brilliantly claustrophobic character-study chiller. Polanski films almost entirely in gloomy Parisian interiors and crams it with eerie detail (such as a dripping tap, or the discovery of a hidden tooth).

The Tenant is full to the brim with ideas from its creator’s wickedly sharp intelligence, creepy performances from a special cast and startling images shot in Eastmancolor by Sven Nykvist. Polanski and Gérard Brach’s screenplay is based on the 1964 novel Le Locataire Chimérique by Roland Topor. Philippe Sarde’s score is a further asset.

The film is a return to the days of Polanski’s Cul-de-Sac and Repulsion, and is the last film in Polanski’s so-called Apartment Trilogy, following Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby.

Also in the cast are Melvyn Douglas, Isabelle Adjani, Shelley Winters, Jo Van Fleet, Lila Kedrova, Claude Dauphin, Bernard Fresson, Claude Piéplu, Romain Bouteille, Jacques Monod, Patrice Alexsandre, Jean-Pierre Bagot, Michel Blanc and Florence Blot.

It was largely shot at apartment building at N°39, Rue la Bruyère, Paris 9, Paris.

It took no money to speak of in America ($1,924,733) and went on to gross only $5,132,555 worldwide. It was no doubt damaged by some influential hostile reviews by critics who misunderstood it, with Roger Ebert judging it ‘not merely bad – it’s an embarrassment’, and Gene Siskel calling it a ‘psychological thriller without the thrills’. It was better received in the UK, and now it has gone on to become appreciated as a cult favourite.

The film was to have been made by British director Jack Clayton about seven years earlier.

The cast are Roman Polanski as Trelkovsky, Isabelle Adjani as Stella, Melvyn Douglas as Monsieur Zy, Jo Van Fleet as Madame Dioz, Bernard Fresson as Scope, Rufus as Georges Badar, Shelley Winters as The Concierge, Lila Kedrova as Madame Gaderian, Patrice Alexsandre as Robert, Romain Bouteille as Simon, Josiane Balasko as Viviane, Claude Dauphin as Husband at the accident, Claude Piéplu as Neighbour, Jacques Monod as Cafe Owner, Jean-Pierre Bagot as Policeman, Jacques Rosny as Jean-Claude, Michel Blanc as Scope’s Neighbour, Eva Ionesco as Madame Gaderian’s daughter Bettina, Albert Delpy as Neighbour, Jean-Pierre Bagot, and Florence Blot.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7486

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