27 rue de la Paix (1937)
Directed by Richard Pottier

Film Review

After learning his trade in the German film studios in the late 1920s, Richard Pottier soon made a name for himself in France with an eclectic assortment of well-honed dramas and light comedies featuring some of the most illustrious acting talent in French cinema.  Of these early films, 27 rue de la Paix stands out, if only because it contains all the essential elements of what we now recognise as classic film noir.  Shadowy sets, anxiety-inducing camerawork, an overly labyrinthine plot strewn with red herrings and a curious gallery of ambiguous characters - to say nothing of the Hitchcockian suspense and brooding atmosphere...  It is a film that evokes so many later noir classics, and even prefigures noir's Italian offshoot, the stylish giallo thriller.

Based on Thomas Forster's play Chaine of Evidence, 27 rue de la Paix is a surprisingly modern film for its time, containing elements of courtroom drama, police-procedural drama, murder mystery, romantic intrigue and even social satire - the darkness of the central story strand lightened periodically by some slightly incongruous comic interludes.  The ingenuity of the plot and the care with which the story is put together allow the film to effectively fasten its disparate elements together, making this one of Pottier's more satisfying forays into crime-drama territory.

27 rue de la Paix was the last of three films that Richard Pottier directed in collaboration with the distinguished screenwriter Jacques Prévert, before the latter began his long and fruitful partnership with the director Marcel Carné.  It is very different from their previous two films - the comedies Si j'étais le patron (1934) and Un oiseau rare (1935).  A much darker work, it contains more than a trace of the distinctive poetic realism that Prévert and Carné would develop in their remarkable series of cinematic masterpieces, including Le Quai des brumes (1938).  The lighting and camerawork both have the boldly expressionistic quality associated with film noir, contributing a great deal to the oppressive mood and tension of the piece whilst foreshadowing the work of subsequent noir-leaning cineastes such as Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock.

With its overt anti-bourgeois subtext and surprising character revelations, 27 rue de la Paix is a film that eerily presages the work of Claude Chabrol.  At the start of the film, we are pretty certain who are the good guys and who are the outright villains.  That Renée Saint-Cyr's immaculately turned out Gloria Grand (a 1930s version of Chabrol's sleek muse Stéphane Audran) is deserving of our sympathy is apparent once we learn that she is married to Jules Berry.  True to form, Berry is the archetypal womanising rogue - he cheats on his wife, steals her money, gets drunk and then beats his mistress into submission.  If there is a murder in the offing, we can be pretty sure that this loathsome excrescence par excellence is bound to be the man behind it.

As the plot unravels, our initial prejudices are gradually chiselled away and we see that whilst Berry's Denis Grand is certainly an outright cad, his is by no means the worst example of human depravity on offer.  Gloria is so desperate to rid herself of her hideous husband that she is almost jumping with joy when she learns he has been arrested for murdering his mistress.  When her new boyfriend Jean Bernard (played by Jean Galland) improbably intervenes to defend Denis in court she shows her true colours and even offers to supply the prosecuting counsel with the testimony needed to convict her husband.

Bernard, ostensibly a barrister of the highest moral standards, is a much more ambiguous individual.  Clearly, he benefits from Denis's conviction and ensuing execution, but professionally he is honour-bound to defend him in court and clear his name.  In one crucial, powerfully played scene, this crisis of conscious is resolved all too easily.  To save the procurer Montfort (Gabriel Signoret) from disgrace, he hands over the one piece of evidence that establishes beyond question his client's guilt.  The reputation of a fellow lawyer is worth more to him than the life of an innocent man - so much for legal ethics.

Gaby Basset's Alice and Suzy Prim's Jenny Clarens make an interesting contrast.  Whereas the latter is motivated purely by self-interest and deserves the tragic hand that fate deals her, Alice is an innocent who resorts to brazen skulduggery - even going so far as to arouse amorous feeling in the film's most decent character merely so she can steal a vital piece of evidence - but she does so for noble reasons.  She is just as guilty of seeking to pervert the course of justice as Gloria - her intervention could well lead to a murderer being acquitted.

Procurer Montfort stands out as the one truly moral character in this ensemble of mask-wearing rogues, hypocrites and misguided do-gooders.  That he is not without flaws is apparent in the ease with which he allows Alice, a woman he hardly knows, to gain his confidence and hoodwink him.  Vulnerable and gullible he may be, but Montfort is the only person on display who is genuinely incorruptible - only he can cut through the mare's nest of vested interests to resolve the murder mystery.  Every other character has a good reason for seeing Denis Grand guillotined or set free, regardless of whether he committed the crime or not.  Bourgeois attitudes founded on self-interest and misguided notions of the public good are shown to be the enemy of justice.

Another class of individual to come off badly in this film is the hack journalist.  As the drama builds to its dizzying climax, the newsmen turn up in court like vultures at a kill, all too ready to file copy which may or may not have any bearing on the truth.  Screenwriter Carlo Rim has great fun lampooning a profession with which he was once closely associated (as a former newspaper editor), although he would have a much better opportunity to lay into the black arts of journalism in a subsequent film, Hercule (1938).

What most distinguishes this highly enjoyable film is a superlative cast that includes some notable stars of the time and some character actors of exceptional quality.  Heading the impressive cast-list is a stunning Renée Saint-Cyr, her refined charms making her all too easy a sympathetic heroine, rather than the vindictive hypocrite she turns out to be in later scenes.  As the ill-fated showgirl Jenny, Suzy Prim's earthier means of seduction make her an effective contrast with Saint-Cyr, and her sultry presence is sorely missed when she is suddenly ejected from the picture. 

Gaby Basset takes over from Saint-Cyr in the film's latter half, monopolising our interest and sympathies as the mysterious Nancy Drew-like outsider who pops up and muddles the intrigue for motives that aren't at all apparent until late in the film.  As the opposing lawyers, Jean Galland and Gabriel Signoret both turn in exemplary performances, showing their worth in the film's most memorable sequence, the one in which their character's moral dilemmas are laid out and skilfully resolved through a convenient sleight of hand that is both metaphorical and literal.

And then there is Jules Berry - who better to play the principal baddy?  By this time, Berry had a virtual monopoly in French cinema as the caddish philandering scoundrel, so the part of the suspected murderer Denis Grand in 27 rue de la Paix was naturally his - any other casting choice would have been downright sacrilege.  Berry's early scenes in the film are certainly in line with what we have come to expect of this notorious scene-stealer.  He scorns his wife's entreaties to agree to a divorce, insisting he will do so only if she hands over a large part of her fortune.  Then he is seen mistreating his mistress, giving her the full James Cagney treatment as he angrily manhandles her and throws her out of his apartment.

This is Jules Berry at his most monstrous - cruel, vicious and sickeningly extortionate.  Of course we have no doubt about him being the murderer!  It is only after Berry has been arrested and thrown into prison that we see through the grotesque exterior and began to realise that, possibly, he might not be so bad as he seems.  This is where the actor it is at his best, playing with his character ambiguities in a surprisingly subtle way, so that it isn't long before Denis begins to appear more a victim of circumstance than a devil in human form.  It is greatly to Pottier's credit that he allows Berry the space to turn in one of his finest performances - one that ranges from pantomimic villainy to crushing introspection - without conceding the entire film to him, as happened on all too many of Berry's films.

Over the decade that followed, Richard Pottier would become one of France's most commercially successful and prolific filmmakers, churning out one slick crowd-pleaser after another to showcase the talents of such stars as Albert Préjean, Fernandel, Tino Rossi and Luis Mariano.  Most memorable are his stylish Maigret offerings Picpus (1943) and Les Caves du majestic (1945).  Whilst Pottier is all too readily written off as a journeyman filmmaker, it should be recognised that he played a significant role in the development of one of the most crucial strands of French cinema, the crime-drama or polar.  In his atmospheric genre offerings like 27 rue de la Paix he laid the groundwork for future directors such as Jacques Becker (Touchez pas au grisbi), Jules Dassin (Du rififi chez les hommes) and Jean-Pierre Melville (Le Doulos).

Film Synopsis

Gloria Grand is in love with a respected barrister Maître Jean Bernard and hopes that one day they will marry.  The only thing standing in the way of their future connubial bliss is Gloria's present husband, the philandering scoundrel Denis Grand.  Having grown dependent on his wife's dwindling personal fortune, Denis refuses to give Gloria a divorce unless she hands over a large sum of money, so the desperate woman is forced to take matters into her own hands.  She contacts her husband's latest mistress, a nightclub singer named Jenny Clarens, and offers her a substantial bribe if she will testify against Denis.  Jenny agrees to meet up with Gloria the next day, but before the meeting can take place Jenny's corpse is found floating in the River Seine.

Denis Grand is the obvious murder suspect.  He met with Jenny on the day she met her death and had a violent row with her in his riverside apartment.  Gloria is appalled when Maître Bernard commits himself to defending Denis in court, particularly when she is so certain of her husband's guilt.  The sudden recovery of a necklace that Denis gave Jenny a few hours before she died provides damning evidence that Denis is indeed the killer.

Matters become complicated when a former protégée of Denis, Alice Perrin, intervenes in a desperate bid to save her erstwhile benefactor.  Having gained the confidence of the procurer Montfort, she steals the incriminating necklace and hands it over to Bernard, insisting that she was in possession of the jewellery at the time Jenny was murdered.  Montfort realises he has been duped when he finds out that the home address which Alice gave him - 27 rue de la paix - does not exist.

In a crisis of conscience, Bernard visits Montfort and returns the necklace to him, knowing that in doing so he may well lose the case and cause an innocent man to be convicted of murder.  The trial proves to be a more sensational event than anybody - even the newspaper men - could have hoped for.  First Denis confesses to the crime, then Alice insists she is the killer.  It is left to Montfort to reveal the true circumstances of Jenny Clarens's death.