Chéri-Bibi (1938)
Directed by Léon Mathot

Film Review

Having made a name for himself in the silent era as an actor (appearing notably in Jean Epstein's 1923 film Coeur fidèle) Léon Mathot enjoyed some success as a film director in the 1930s and 40s.  One of his most successful film as a director is his grimly noirish adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel  Chéri-Bibi, which features one of the most spectacular prison escape sequences of any French film but is let down by its obvious budgetary limitations when the plots crash-lands and fizzles out to nothing in French Guiana.

The first half of the film is actually quite good, an admirable example of 1930s French film noir that showcases the talents of Pierre Fresnay, cast against type as an almost psychopathic gangster type.  Moodily lit with stark shadows, in a way that presages early American film noir of the following decade, Chéri-Bibi has a brooding intensity which attains its climax in the dramatic escape attempt on board a prison ship.  Regrettably, Mathot was unable to sustain this level of creativity for the rest of the film and everything that happens after the midpoint is an anti-climax.

Part of the problem is the horrible mismatch between the location scenes and cheap studio mock-ups, which, in too many scenes, involve actors standing up and talking in front of what is obviously a blown up photograph of a jungle.  This convention may have been tolerated by an audience of the 1930s but today it looks tacky and makes it virtually impossible for the spectator to suspend his disbelief.  It's not only money that is lacking, imagination is also in short supply.  Mathot partly redeems himself in the final part of the film, which overcomes the artificiality of a studio-filmed exterior by effective use of mist and lighting.

It doesn't help that the performances in the second half of the film are way below par, although this can be partly attributed to a script that completely runs out of steam by the fifty minute mark.  Fresnay's performance becomes increasingly unconvincing as the title character fails to develop beyond its obvious archetype, but Fresnay's grunting and face pulling are preferable to Jean-Pierre Aumont's almost unbearable histrionics.  Chéri-Bibi is the classic 'film of two halves' - it begins promisingly with flair and imagination but all too soon it degenerates into a rambling, poorly realised melodrama.

Film Synopsis

A fugitive from justice, Chéri-Bibi is captured after being denounced by his girlfriend Ginette and ends up on a convict ship bound for Guiana, to serve out a long sentence of hard labour.  His fellow prisoners include Raoul de St-Delmas, nicknamed Palas, who has been wrongly convicted of the murder of his uncle.  At first Chéri-Bibi mistrusts Palas, believing him to be an informer, but later takes him into his confidence and they become friends.  An attempt by the prisoners to take control of the ship ends in dismal failure and they are soon on their way to prison.  Realising that Palas has a chance of clearing his name if he can only get back to France, Chéri-Bibi organises another escape plan...