La Glu (1927)
Directed by Henri Fescourt

Film Review

Jean Richepin's scandalous 1881 novel La Glu had already been adapted three times for the stage - first as a five-act play in 1883, then in the form of two operas, by Gabriel Dupont and Camille Erlanger - before Albert Capellani selected it as the follow-up to his lavish film adaptation of Zola's Germinal (1913).  Capellani was very much in the vanguard of the film d'art movement in his capacity as artistic director at Pathé's subsidiary SCAGL, which was committed to improving the quality of cinema through its big budget adaptations of great works of literature.  Another company which had the same objectives was Société des Cinéromans, which Pathé had acquired in 1922, three years after its foundation by the prominent writer Gaston Leroux (of Phantom of the Opera fame).  At the time, Cinéromans's golden boy director was Henri Fescourt, who had cut his directing teeth at Gaumont under Louis Feuillade and, with around fifty shorts under his belt, was both highly regarded and totally committed to the film d'art philosophy pioneered by Capellani and his successor at SCAGL, André Antoine.

Henri Fescourt's first hit for Cinéromans was Rouletabille chez les bohémiens (1922), a realist adventure serial of ten episodes which was very much in the mould of his erstwhile mentor, Louis Feuillade.  The enormous popularity of this widely promoted serial provided a huge boost to the director's career and allowed to him to follow it up with his greatest and grandest film, Les Misérables (1925), which is widely regarded as the finest screen adaptation of Victor Hugo's beloved literary masterpiece.  Compared with this five hour epic, his much shorter adaptation of Richepin's La Glu cannot help looking like a modest affair, but whilst it certainly isn't the director's most notable work, it does have many points of interest - not least of which is its inspired use of location filming in Brittany, which prefigures Jean Epstein's subsequent series of Breton studies - Finis terrae (1929), Mor vran (1931), L'Or des mers (1932).

Typical of its era, La Glu offers a sensationalist rendering of a sensationalist literary work, culminating in a brutal axe murder that would no doubt have gratified the Grand Guignol appetites of cinema audiences of the time.  The plot, however, would have been considered a tad dated even by the mid-1920s, the concept a decent lad being corrupted by a vampish outsider (who inevitably hails from the Big City) being one that had been pretty well mined to death over the past decade.  Today the film's tacky bourgeois moral perspective - misogynistic and puritanical to a fault - is pretty hard to stomach, but if we overlook this obvious defect La Glu is an exemplary work for its period, crafted with immense skill and artistry by a director who was as motivated to deliver great art as he was to entertaining his audience.  He was, some might argue, the Steven Spielberg of his generation, although his knack of turning out successful crowdpleasers ultimately robbed him of the prestige accorded to some of his more artistically committed contemporaries.

In the making of the film, Henri Fescourt was no doubt influenced by André Antoine and the impressionist filmmakers, in particular Marcel L'Herbier, whose L'Homme du large (1920) also made good use of its Brittany location.  Nearer to Antoine's style of naturalistic filmmaking, Fescourt uses his raw coastal setting with painterly panache to create the impression of a closed community from which the vampish seductress from Paris is permanently excluded - something that makes her appear both dangerous and tragic.  Germaine Rouer portrays the unnamed vamp in all its archetypal crudity, seen always from the narrow point-of-view of others - as either an irresistible object of desire or a malevolent corrupting demon.  Alluring she may be, but a thing of exquisite beauty she certainly is not. She has a slightly repellent belle laideur evocative of the cheap Parisian brothel and there is no attempt to make the character sympathetic. Even her death - shocking though it is - leaves us cold and unmoved.  Despite the one-dimensional nature of the character, Rouer makes her the most compelling and memorable figure in the drama, not only highly seductive but nasty with it.  Look how excited she appears as her sugar daddy pulls a gun on her boyish plaything - like the audience, she derives an almost sexual thrill from the prospect of imminent bloodletting.  She is vile.
 
François Rozet's somewhat overwrought portrayal of the Parisienne's hapless victim is perhaps less praiseworthy but it adequately serves the heightened melodramatic turn which the film takes for its climactic final act.  Rozet was a far more capable actor than La Glu would have us believe.  He had previously played Marius with great charm and sensitivity in Fescourt's monumental Les Misérables and would take a leading part in the first French talkie, Les Trois masques (1929), directed by André Hugon.  His stage and screen career was long and prolific, both concluding in French Canada, where he gained a reputation as one of Quebec's finest classical actors.  Rozet's enfant sauvage good looks and penchant for naturalistic acting are both exploited to the full by Fescourt, and the actor brings a striking modernity to a film which is otherwise mired in the dreary plot conventions of its time.

It is La Glu's technical qualities that make it worth watching - particularly the photography and editing, which are both surprisingly slick and modern for this era.  Big close-ups are used to great effect to fully expose the characters' feelings and thoughts (thereby reducing the film's reliance on inter-titles to the minimum), as well as emphasising the conflict and subjectivity inherent in the drama.  The pace and style of the editing are perfectly attuned to the dramatic nature of the situation, achieving a genuinely visceral impact in the film's two most shocking sequences - Marie-Pierre's suicide attempt and the Parisian vamp's brutal killing.  Fescourt avoids the stylistic excesses of his impressionist contemporaries but still manages to pack a tremendous punch with his more down-to-earth realist style, which is extraordinarily brutal in its directness and simplicity.  La Glu is vastly overshadowed by the director's earlier Les Misérables and no less impressive Monte Cristo (1929) but it has its moments of brilliance and bravado, not least of which is possibly the most horrifyingly explicit murder to be depicted in a film up until this point.

Film Synopsis

Not long after her arrival in a small Breton fishing village, a young woman from Paris soon draws attention to herself.  Attached to the Count of Ribiers, a wealthy landowner several years her senior, the woman is looked on with suspicion by the locals, who see her as a dangerous temptress.  One day, a young local man, Marie-Pierre, catches sight of her on the beach and finds himself drawn to her, even though he is slightly repelled by her plain features.  Although Marie-Pierre has been well brought up by his severe but loving mother, he cannot contain the torrent of feeling he suddenly has for the seductive outsider.  He believes he has found the love of his life, but she only considers him to be just another in a long line of brief amorous conquests.  Discovering that the Parisian has deceived him, Marie-Pierre confronts her with violent intent, but is chased away at gunpoint by his wealthy rival.

Shocked as much by his lover's callousness as by her betrayal, Marie-PIerre hastens to the rock-lined coast and hurls himself off a precipice.  Landing on the beach, he is badly injured but miraculously survives the fall.  As the desolate young man recovers in bed, nursed by his devoted mother, the Parisian pays a visit, even though she knows she is not welcome.  As she attempts to ascend the staircase to her victim's bedroom, the boy's mother seizes an axe and strikes her a fatal blow to the head.  Aware that the old woman was only acting to protect her son the Count declares that he will take the blame for the killing of his wife.  The commotion downstairs awakens Marie-Pierre and his mother rushes to his side, grateful that another storm has passed.