Stupéfiants (1932)
Directed by Kurt Gerron, Roger Le Bon

Film Review

Stupéfiants is the French version of a Franco-German production from the prestigious German studios of UFA, its German language counterpart being titled Der Weiße Dämon.  Although the two films had different directors and cast lists, they shared the same lead actor, Peter Lorre, whose reputation for sinister character portrayals was established the year before in Fritz Lang's atmospheric thriller M (1931).  Here, as the deformed villainous lead, Lorre is as charismatic and spine-chillingly evil as ever, and he turns in a magnetic performance to rival those he would subsequently give in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and Karl Freund's Mad Love (1935).  Lorre's star presence is by far the best thing that Stupéfiants has going for it.

In the French version, the cast list comprises some notable French actors of the period: Jean Murat, Roger Karl and Danièle Parola, the latter best known for her later collaborations with director Marc Allégret - Aventure à Paris (1936) and Sous les yeux d'Occident (1936).  Stupéfiants suffers from some obvious shortcomings on both the directing and writing fronts, with exposition, narrative logic and character depth looking like they have been discarded as optional extras by the production team.

Still, scripting deficiencies not withstanding, Stupéfiants is as well-paced as any action film of this era, and director Roger Le Bon shows some flair in this, one of many co-productions he lent his talents to.  The expressionistic photography adds greatly to the sombre mood of the piece, anticipating film noir with its boldly atmospheric use of lighting. Some extensive location filming - pretty rare for a film of this period - helps to give the film a modern realistic feel, allowing it to compare favourably with bigger budget American productions. The director of the German version, Kurt Gerron, turned down offers to work in Hollywood and ended up being arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Death Camp at Auschwitz, where he and his family were gassed.

Film Synopsis

Liliane Werner's dazzling career as an opera singer would seem to be in jeopardy when she succumbs to mysterious debilitating illness.  Her devoted brother Henri is astonished and appalled when he learns that Liliane has become chronically addicted to drugs.  Worse, she has fallen under the malign influence of a band of sinister narcotics dealers.  When the opera singer is kidnapped, Henri has no option but to risk his own neck in a desperate bid to rescue her and thwart the drugs dealers in their next daring operation...