Les Intrigantes (1954)
Directed by Henri Decoin

Film Review

Director Henri Decoin brings a touch of old-fashioned razzmatazz and dark humour to a hideously contrived plot in this somewhat schizophrenic murder mystery thriller.  Lacking the eerie mood of Decoin's previous thrillers, Les Intrigantes is a curious mixed bag that isn't quite sure whether it's meant to be a classic whodunit, an outright comedy or a tongue-in-cheek exposé of the theatrical world.  The film's schizoid character is reflected in its cast, which sees Louis de Funès (well over a decade before he became France's popular comic actor) not so much sharing the limelight as stealing it outright with merciless determination from the billed stars Jeanne Moreau, Raymond Rouleau and Raymond Pellegrin.

Les Intrigantes is a polished production, as slick as any other Decoin film of this era, but plotwise it is something of a mess, with several disparate elements failing to cohere into anything vaguely resembling a satisfying whole.  It doesn't help that the performances of the three lead actors are shamelessly overwrought - perhaps they were afraid of being completely eclipsed by the new kid on the block, de Funès.   Pellegrin is enjoyably sinister, looking more menacing than ever behind a pair of dark shades, but it is such a cartoonish manifestation of evil that it would be much better suited for pantomime (it's clearly his audition piece for the Fantômas movies he would voice in the 1960s).

Early in her career, Jeanne Moreau has already cultivated the femme libre mystique that would become her hallmark but Decoin fails to exploit her sultry charms and she only comes to life in her scenes with Pellegrin.  The dangerously erotic Moreau-Pellegrin chemistry is the best thing going for the film, but this is far better exploited in their next film together, Pierre Billon's Jusqu'au dernier (1957).  As for Raymond Rouleau... well, he just does a lot of shouting and looking like a man with a hangman's noose around his neck.  With none of the leads taking things that seriously, it was inevitable that Monsieur de Funès should come to the fore and steal the whole show, irresistibly funny as a tyrannical playwright defending the artistic integrity of a play that is only safe to watch whilst under a deep anaesthetic.  Paul Demange fills the (few) comedy cracks that de Funès somehow overlooks, and gets the last laugh (literally) as a hellishly persistent insurance broker.  The Upstagers would probably have been a more accurate title.

Film Synopsis

Theatre impresario Paul Rémi is rehearsing his new production Rendez-vous sur l'Olympe when his business partner Bazine falls to his death from a gangway high above the stage.  Rémi faces arrest and disgrace when, tipped off by an anonymous witness, the newspapers accuse him of murder.  To buy himself some time, he allows himself to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.  The mysterious witness turns out to be his assistant, Andrieux, who offers Rémi's wife Mona a long-awaited opportunity to take control of the theatre if she works with him to have her husband put away for good.  The temptation is too great for Mona to resist, but Rémi can rely on help from another quarter.  His secretary Marie has the evidence that will proof his innocence, but will she live long enough to make any use of it...?