Mauvaise graine (1934)
Directed by Alexander Esway, Billy Wilder

Film Review

A fugitive from Nazi Germany, Billy Wilder cut his directing teeth during his brief sojourn in France with a low budget film that he was quick to disown after he had made a name for himself in Hollywood.  Mauvaise graine has none of the gloss and sophistication of Wilder's subsequent films, although it shows one of his trademarks, his obsession with continuous motion - evident in his boisterous comedies Some Like It Hot (1959) and One, Two, Three (1961).  Before this, Wilder had begun a promising career as a screenwriter in Germany, on such films as Menschen am Sonntag (1930) and Emil und die Detektive (1931).  Wilder's first experience of directing was not an easy one and it would be another eight years before he directed his next film, The Major and the Minor (1942), after he had established himself as a screenwriter in Hollywood.  Although Wilder is credited as directing the film with Alexander Esway, it was Wilder who did most of the work (according to Danielle Darrieux, Esway was never seen on set).  Esway's participation may have been purely nominal, to allow Wilder to raise the money to make the film.

Unable to scrape together the resources to mount a polished studio production, Wilder and his team were driven by necessity to shoot the entire film on location, something that was virtually unheard of in French cinema at the time.  As a consequence, Mauvaise graine has a raw dynamism and modernity that is quite unlike any French film of this period.  Indeed, it seems to have more in common with the early work of the French New Wave, which came a quarter of a century later.  For the protracted car chase sequences (which were extremely ambitious for the time), Wilder was unable to avail himself of the kind of trickery that today's filmmakers take for granted - they were shot for real (as a documentary), with the director pointing a camera out of the back of a fast-moving van.

Wilder was fortunate to secure the services of Danielle Darrieux and Pierre Mingand, two rising stars who were then both at the start of their screen careers.  Darrieux was only 16 when she made the film, but already she had star quality and was very soon to become one of the most iconic performers in  French cinema.  A pianist with Ray Ventura's orchestra, Mingand enjoyed success as a singer, musician and actor; a close friend of Darrieux, he worked with her on three other films, including Mademoiselle Mozart (1936), Abus de confiance (1937) and Retour à l'aube (1938).  The other notable name in the cast list is Raymond Galle, who would later star alongside Darrieux in Jacques Deval's cross-dressing farce Club de femmes (1936).

Billy Wilder's penchant for lively comedy is very evident in Mauvaise graine, although the humour is much blunter than in his slicker Hollywood offerings.  This film's funniest moments are the frantic car chases, which evoke a little of the madness of the earlier Keystone Cops films (thanks in part to the jaunty jazz-like score supplied by Franz Waxman), although there is plenty of humorous interaction between the car thieves, some of whom could pass for fully paid up members of the Crazy Gang.  Wilder's reputation for taboo-shattering subversion surfaces only slightly, in the hint of a homoerotic relationship between the two characters Henri and Jean-la-Cravate.  (The scene in which they exchange their neckties is highly suggestive.)  The film's title literally translates as Bad Seed, meaning Bad Lot - which is perhaps as much an allusion to Henri's ambiguous sexuality as his criminal tendencies.  No one could mistake Mauvaise graine for a classic, but it does exhibit the seeds of that Wilder greatness that would one day flourish in the more benign climate of Hollywood.

Film Synopsis

The son of a prosperous surgeon, Henri Pasquier is a good-for-nothing playboy who spends most of his time speeding around Paris in his roadster.  Imagine then his anguish when his father confiscates his car and sells it, in an attempt to get his son to change his ways.  Henri cannot believe his good fortune when, a few days later, he sees his beloved car in the street, with the keys in the ignition.  Without a moment's hesitation, he climbs into the car and drives away in it.  He is pursued across Paris by another car, driven by men belonging to a gang of car thieves.  Taken to the garage where the thieves repaint their stolen cars, Henri readily agrees to join the gang.  Henri strikes up an immediate friendship with one of the younger members of the gang, a lad named Jean-la-Cravate because he can't help stealing ties.  Jean introduces his new friend to his sister Jeannette, whose role is to lure wealthy men away from their cars so that Jean and his friends can purloin them without being noticed.  The gang's boss takes a dislike to Henri when he insists he and his fellow gang members are entitled to more money for their efforts.  In an attempt to get rid of the troublesome Henri, the gang leader sends him and Jeannette to Marseille, in a car with a broken front axle.  En route, Henri is spotted by the police and a lengthy night-time chase ensues.  Miraculously, Henri and Jeannette survive a car crash and hitch a lift to Marseille, from which they plan to take a ship to another country.  Jeannette cannot leave without her brother, so Henri returns to Paris to fetch him.  He arrives just as the police are about to raid the thieves' garage...