Le Jour et l'heure (1963)
Directed by René Clément

Film Review

In the wake of his inspired Patricia Highsmith adaptation Plein soleil (1960) and Fascist-themed period comedy Quelle joie de vivre (1960), René Clément made one of his less well-known films, an intense war-time drama starring the magnificent Simone Signoret at the height of her powers.  Released in France on 5th April 1963, Le Jour et l'heure was Clément's twelfth feature and the fourth of his films to be set during the Second World War.  In 1946, Clément won the Best Director award and Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival for his acclaimed war time drama-documentary La Bataille du rail; this was followed by Le Père tranquille (1946), Les Maudits (1947) and the Oscar-winning Jeux interdits (1952).

Le Jour et l'heure deserves far greater prominence than it currently enjoys as it is assuredly one of the best of the WWII-era films made in France in the 1960s, far superior to the director's subsequent overblown, rambling epic Paris brûle-t-il? (1966).  Clément's technical expertise and penchant for authenticity is evident throughout the film, and with directorial assistance from Costa-Gavras and Claude Pinoteau (both of whom became renowned filmmakers in their own right a short time afterwards), he could hardly fail to turn out yet another winner.  Through its remarkable attention to detail and Henri Decaë's atmospheric photography, the film powerfully evokes the mood of Nazi Occupied France, the fear of betrayal and the constant threat of arrest.  Best known for his soundtrack on Jacques Deray's Borsalino (1970), the jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling provides a suitably menacing score for the film.

This is not to say that Le Jour et l'heure is an unqualified masterpiece.  Occasionally, Clément shows a tendency to over-egg the pudding, over-playing the drama, for example in a long, claustrophobic train sequence and a violent police interrogation.  However, these lapses are more than made up for by the poignant relationship at the heart of the narrative, between an American airman and the depressive middleclass woman who helps him to evade the Nazis.  It is an unlikely romantic pairing but somehow Simone Signoret and Stuart Whitman (recently seen in a grander WWII piece, The Longest Day) manage to make it totally believable and we are soon immersed in their characters' struggles as they become caught up in the twin tumults of war and emotional involvement.  Signoret's character is remarkably similar to the one she later played in Jean-Pierre Melville's L'Armée des ombres (1969), and it seems likely that Melville gave her the role on the strength of her performance in Clément's film.

Even though Signoret and Whitman monopolise our attention for most of the film it helps that the supporting cast includes such distinguished performers as Geneviève Page (excellent as a despicable collaborator) and Michel Piccoli (in a small but beautifully formed role).  With his grotesquely sinister looks (which often led him to be cast as vampires and killers) Reggie Nalder makes a disturbing German policeman, whilst Marcel Bozzuffi  and Pierre Dux prove to be unspeakably vile as a pair of Nazi-loving French cops.

Le Jour et l'heure marks the start of a run of films in which René Clément cast prominent French and American actors in the leading roles.  After this we had the pairing of Alain Delon and Jane Fonda in Les Félins (1964), Marlène Jobert and Charles Bronson in Le Passager de la pluie (1970), Jean-Louis Trintignant and Robert Ryan in La Course du lièvre à travers les champs (1972) and Maria Schneider and Sydne Rome in Jeune fille libre le soir (1975).  In a filmography that is studded with enduring classics and impeccable masterpieces, Le Jour et l'heure is all too easily overlooked but it is easily one of René Clément's most compelling and humane dramas, far more nuanced and satisfying than any other film he subsequently made and perhaps more worthy of attention than some of his earlier award-grabbing successes.

Film Synopsis

During WWII, Thérèse Dutheil refuses to have any interest in politics, even though her husband is being held a prisoner-of-war in Germany.  Arriving in the village where she was born, Thérèse learns that an American aeroplane has been shot down and that the Germans are looking for the three airmen who parachuted out to safety before the plane crashed.  In the lorry that is to take her back to Paris, Thérèse is surprised to find the three American airmen.  Having reached their destination, one of the airmen, Captain Morley, is unable to take refuge at a pharmacist's as planned.  Instead, he asks Thérèse to find him a place to stay, believing that she is in with the French resistance.  Thérèse agrees to hide him at the house of her sister-in-law, Agathe, in spite of the fact that the latter is far from hostile towards the Germans...