Monsieur Personne (1936)
Directed by Christian-Jaque

Film Review

Christian-Jaque has the distinction of being not only one of France's most productive filmmakers (around sixty films for cinema, not to mention numerous offerings for French television), he also directed some of the enduring classics of French cinema, including Les Disparus de Saint-Agil (1938), L'Assassinat du Père Noël (1941) and Fanfan la Tulipe (1952).  One of the first films to put him on the map was Monsieur Personne, a tongue-in-cheek policier that, whilst it doesn't take itself too seriously, at times can't help feeling like a template for the classic American noir thriller.  The opening sequence in particular - an impressively staged bank heist - has an astonishing pace and modernity and could easily fit into any hardboiled American film noir of the 1940s.

The film is based on a novel of the same title by Marcel Allain, one of the authors of the famous Fantômas stories which had previously been adapted for cinema as a series of films by Louis Feuillade in 1913-4 and then as a film by Pál Fejös in 1932.  Allain's elusive gentleman thief was clearly modelled on Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin, and there is practically nothing to distinguish Jules Berry's slimily smooth Monsieur Personne from the actor's subsequent portrayal of Leblanc's fictional anti-hero in Arsène Lupin détective (1937).  In both films, Berry plays the criminal as a debonair cad who is nauseatingly ingratiating in public and deliciously venal in private.  In either the case, it is a gift of a part for an actor who was never known to spare the ham if he could do so.

Jules Berry's performance aside (you will either love it or hate it, depending on your aversion to ham), the film does have some notable shortcomings, mostly in the script department.  It is probably the film's episodic structure (similar to that of Allain's Fantômas novels), that causes the narrative to be unevenly paced and unfocused, with no clear direction of travel.  The characters are poorly developed and lack substance, the only one who is not a non-person being, ironically, Berry's double-faceted Monsieur Personne. 

This could have been the most pedestrian of crime films were it not for the gusto with which Christian-Jaque (then an enthusiastic 32 year-old) directs it.  From time to time, there is an echo of the frenetic pace of Feuillade's thriller serials, but Christian-Jaque's obvious penchant for action is inhibited by a third rate script that is too chatty and stagy for its own good.  After this, the director was clearly destined for great things, and whilst the film isn't particularly memorable it does uncannily presage those realistic policiers that would take off with a vengeance during the following decade, on both sides of the Atlantic.  Monsieur Personne may not be a milestone but it is at least a stepping stone in the development of film noir.

Film Synopsis

The Paris police have their work cut out trying to find the individual behind a recent spate of daring robberies.  No one has the slightest clue to the identity of the mysterious thief, who goes by the name Monsieur Personne.  Who would ever suspect that the refined Count de Trégunc and this master criminal are one in the same individual?  At the count's request, the popular socialite Josette Vernod organises a séance at her home.  Whilst the lights are out, Monsieur Personne strikes and helps himself to all the jewels and other objects of value in the possession of Josette's wealthy guests.  By the time Inspector Marchand shows up to investigate, the stolen items have disappeared into thin air.

The next day, the hostess receives an unexpected visit from the count, who informs her that the jewels, including her own, have somehow ended up in Marchand's overcoat.  It isn't long after this amusing escapade that Monsieur Personne is planning his next criminal venture - the theft of a suitcase containing a small fortune in bank notes.  With the help of his dependable accomplice, Germain, the count manages to give his police pursuers the slip and runs off with the case, having liberated it from the man charged with its delivery.  The police then enlist the help of a notary, Maître Monin, in laying a trap that Monsieur Personne will be unable to resist.  But once again, the thief proves to be too smart for them...