Judex (1916)
Directed by Louis Feuillade

Film Review

Louis Feuillade had achieved considerable fame and commercial success through his groundbreaking crime serials Fantômas (1913) and Les Vampires (1915), but he also attracted some pretty harsh criticism from rightwing commentators for his apparent glorification of criminals.  His response to this was to deliver another serial in which the central character is a good guy - one who is almost the exact mirror image of the sadistic crime lord Fantômas, a champion of justice rather than an angel of destruction.  Judex (the title derives from the Latin word for judge) was to be Feuillade's biggest hit and its staggering popularity on both sides of the Atlantic led the director (somewhat against his will) to make a sequel, La Nouvelle Mission de Judex (1917).  In 1934, Feuillade's son-in-law Maurice Champreux directed a sound remake of the film, and then in 1963 Georges Franju helmed a further remake, scripted by Champreux's own son, Jacques.

It was typical of Louis Feuillade's bravado to embark on the making of a five-hour long adventure film in the midst of the most tumultuous event of his lifetime, the First World War.  The scarcity of resources (film for commercial use would soon be strictly rationed in France) and galloping inflation did not dent Feuillade's enthusiasm, and he overcame the problem of escalating fuel prices by filming the latter episodes of the serial on the sun-drenched Côte d'Azur.  Gaumont was one of the few film production companies in Europe that was still holding its own against the onslaught from the burgeoning film industry in America.  The studio shot itself in the foot, however, by delaying the release of Judex for a few months (through fears of being labelled anti-patriotic), allowing a similar American film (Louis J. Gasnier's The Shielding Shadow) to steal some of its thunder.

Feuillade's impact as a trailblazer in the early days of cinema exploitation is so apparent that it hardly needs to be dwelt upon, but Judex, his most influential film, is in a league of its own.  With his wide-brimmed hat and flowing black cape, Judex (or Jacques de Tremeuse, to give him his real name) has an iconic silhouette, which was apparently inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec's famous portrait of the cabaret singer Aristide Bruant.  Memorably portrayed by the dashing René Cresté as a cool but resolute defender of widows and orphans, Judex was cinema's first great action hero, and an obvious precursor to all those superheroes that started flooding the pages of pulp fiction and comicbooks from the 1930s onwards.  By virtue of his distinctive garb and the fact that he inhabits a subterranean lair packed with all manner of scientific paraphernalia, assisted by a helpful sidekick and a penchant for disguise, Judex appears to be Batman in all but name, and like his more outlandish successors, he is driven to punish wrongdoers by an unwavering faith in his moral superiority.

But Judex most definitely isn't Batman, or any other superhero you care to mention.  He has no special powers, nor are his moral certainties as solid as they first appear.  The purpose of the film is to convince us that moral certainties are both illusory and dangerous, certainly no basis for a rational and humane system of justice.  Someone who believes he has a right to dish out punishment, however well-meaning, is as morally questionable as the villains he persecutes, and Feuillade prompts us to question whether any one individual can have the right to sit in judgement over another.  Chastisement for wrong-doings is nothing more than retribution, a crime answering another crime, whereas the morally superior course is to bring about atonement and redemption through forgiveness.  Judex's career as an avenging angel is pretty well over by the time he has captured the villainous banker Favraux and begins to inflict on him a punishment that soon eats away at his own moral authority.  Judex's realisation that he is himself a criminal and has no right to torment others, let alone judge them, makes him the most fascinating and ambiguous character in Feuillade's entire oeuvre.  Far from being just another adventure serial what the director delivers this time is a cogent morality play on the limits of justice and the futility of revenge.

Judex is also a highly enjoyable piece of entertainment, its multiple plot strands (including extended flashbacks) easily sustaining the audience's attention with numerous surprising twists and a colourful ensemble of characters played by some very capable actors. René Cresté was a virtual unknown before Feuillade gave him the role that would make him an international star. As well as the mysterious cloaked vigilante Judex, Cresté has to play two other characters - the bent old secretary Vallières and the morally conflicted Jacques de Tremeuse.  The ease with which he delineates these very different individuals marks him out as a formidable screen talent.  After starring in several other Feuillade serials and features - notably Tih Minh (1918) and Vendémiaire (1918) - Cresté turned his hand to film production in the early 1920s, but without any success.  Financially ruined and disillusioned with filmmaking, he ended up managing a cinema in Paris not long before he died from tuberculosis in 1922 at the age of 40.  There's a sweet irony in the way the actor's tragic descent from wealth and stardom to poverty and obscurity in the last six years of his life mirrors the transformation of his most celebrated screen creation - from an almost god-like avenger capable of punishing anyone he chooses to an ordinary mortal who is so feeble he has to be rescued from certain death by a passing woman gymnast in a swimsuit.

And then there is the film's secret weapon - Musidora, cinema's first super-vamp and the most potent, the most lubricious femme fatale of them all.  It was the actress's iconic appearance as the catsuit-wearing mistress of crime Irma Vep in Les Vampires that made her an overnight star. As the even more sly and venomous Diana Monti in Judex she is the villain you just cannot get enough of - an oily demonic temptress who only has to look at a man to make him her willing slave and a pawn in her vile nefarious exploits.  In contrast to her nemesis Judex, whose powers slowly diminish as the serial progresses, the deadly Diana becomes ever more powerful, every setback seemingly strengthening her resolve and capacity for evil, until she ultimately appears to be unstoppable.  Musidora's frightening sexual magnetism and naturally dark and mysterious persona work hand-in-hand to make her cinema's fullest embodiment of the sinful siren, and you relish every moment she is on the screen.

Judex came into being just at the time when, possibly influenced by Gaumont's other star director Léonce Perret, Louis Feuillade was beginning to nudge towards a more realistic, down-to-earth style of cinema.  The fantasy elements and surrealist touches of the director's previous serials are conspicuous by their absence in Judex, and whilst there is enough criminal intrigue to justify the film being classified as a crime drama it should more properly be considered a melodrama and social critique.  Perhaps if he had been less susceptible to the commercial pressures put upon him by his boss Léon Gaumont, Feuillade may have been inclined to make the film a more conventional feature, with a significantly shorter runtime than the five hours that Judex runs to in its entirety.  Had the director done this, Judex would undoubtedly have been a film that was better placed to answer Feuillade's detractors.

The film's most obvious flaw is that amidst all the plot digressions (which show a slightly off-putting degree of repetition, with one botched kidnapping followed by another, and another...) its moral points are somewhat diluted.  As a result, what might have been a powerful study in the morality of judgement ends up as merely another feisty crowdpleaser, sensationalist fun for the masses.  Feuillade's strength as a commercial filmmaker was also his great weakness - it prevented him from taking the kind of risks that many of his contemporaries were routinely indulging in as they developed the new medium of cinema.  Like Georges Méliès before him, Feuillade stuck with a formula that worked for a while and scarcely departed from it.

You'd have thought that Feuillade's slavish adherence to static camera set-ups, with whole scenes almost invariably filmed in mid-shot from exactly the same position, would mean that his films are dull beyond belief, but this is definitely not the case.  The trick was in the editing, and this was how Feuillade was able to bring pace and tension to his films. Feuillade's other talent was getting the right kind of performances from his cast - the humourous interludes involving Cocantin (the world's worst private detective) and the Liquorice Kid (a blatant steal from a Charles Dickens novel) provide some welcome comic relief and prevent the film from ever getting into a grim and maudlin groove.  Despite its daunting length, Judex is an absolute page-turner of a film, and once you have been hooked by its incident-packed prologue you are likely to be gripped right through to the end, to witness the nail-biting showdown between two of the most vividly drawn characters of the silent era - the malfunctioning justice machine Judex and his murderous man-eating adversary Diana Monti.  The next time you watch a Batman or Spiderman movie, just remember that Louis Feuillade got there first - and made a much better job of it.

The episode titles and approximate runtimes in the most recent digitally restored version of Judex are as follows:

Prologue (36')

Épisode 1: L'Ombre mystérieuse (The Mysterious Shadow) (26')

Épisode 2: L'Expiation (Atonement) (16')

Épisode 3: La Meute fantastique (The Fantastic Hounds) (37')

Épisode 4: Le Secret de la tombe (The Secret of the Tomb) (25')

Épisode 5: Le Moulin tragique (The Tragic Mill) (26')

Épisode 6: Le Môme réglisse (The Licorice Kid) (22')

Épisode 7: La Femme en noir (The Woman in Black) (29')

Épisode 8: Les Souterrains du Château-Rouge (The Dungeons of the Chateau  Rouge) (24')

Épisode 9: Lorsque l'enfant parut (When the Child Appears) (24')

Épisode 10: Le Coeur de Jacqueline (The Heart of Jacqueline) (8')

Épisode 11: L'Ondine (The Water Sprite) (25')

Épisode 12: Le Pardon d'amour (The Forgiveness of Love) (8')

Épilogue (5')

Film Synopsis

Robert Moralés, an ex-convict, has entered into a partnership with the beautiful but treacherous adventuress Diana Monti.  Having decided that their next victim will be the wealthy banker Favraux, Monti gets herself a position as governess to Favraux's infant grandson Jean at his country residence Les Sablons.  Here, Favraux is visited by an old man, Pierre Kerjean, seeking reparation after being ruined by the banker and driven to a life of crime.  The old man is sent away with a flea in his ear and is almost knocked down by the banker as he drives back to Paris.  Not long afterwards, Favraux receives a letter notifying him that unless he gives up half of his fortune to the public assistance he will soon die.

Not one to give in to blackmail, Favraux immediately engages the services of a private detective, Cocantin, but in vain.  At the minute the deadline expires, in the course of a party to celebrate his daughter Jacqueline's engagement to the Marquis de la Rochefontaine, Favraux suddenly collapses and is pronounced dead.  On learning of the misery her father has brought to others through his underhand business deals, Jacqueline Aubry gives up her entire fortune and moves to Paris to find work as a piano teacher, leaving her son in the care of foster parents.  One day, she receives a telephone call and is surprised to hear her father's voice.  Favraux is not dead but is in fact a prisoner of the man calling himself Judex, confined to a cell in the latter's underground lair beneath the ruins of the Château Rouge.

Judex has waited many years to avenge himself on the banker who caused the death of his father and the despair of his mother.  Now he intends keeping him a prisoner for the rest of his life, his wealth distributed amongst those who need it most.  Angered that her plans to extort money from Favraux have gone awry, Diana Monti takes her revenge against Jacqueline Aubry by abducting her.  Helped by a pack of hounds, Judex comes to Jacqueline's rescue and warns the adventuress that she will share Favraux's fate if she ever tries to harm his daughter again.  Scorning the warning, Diana and Moralés kidnap the young woman a second time and take her to a disused mill.  The criminals fall out when Diana attempts to murder her prisoner, just as Judex and Kerjean appear.

As Diana flees, Kerjean recognises Moralés as his estranged son Robert and a teary reconciliation ensues.  As Jacqueline recovers in the care of her father's former secretary Vallières, Kerjean and his son return to the Château Rouge for the satisfaction of seeing Favraux languishing in prison.  Moralés makes up his mind to make a fresh start by joining the Foreign Legion, but he cannot resist paying one last call on his former accomplice.  Diana Monti's power over him is too great too resist and Moralés is drawn into her next criminal exploit.  They will rescue Favraux and demand a generous reward when his fortune is returned to him...