THE BEST PROGRAMMING IN TOWN: French Noir |

By Meredith Brody

(November 5, 2022)

San Francisco is lucky to have Donald Malcolm’s French Noir Series, “The French Had a Name for It” at the Roxie.

The upcoming festival programs 15 films over four days at the Little Roxie, and once again I will be there for all of it. It unspools on Sunday November 6 and Monday November 7, and the following on Saturday November 12 and Sunday November 13.

Of the 15 films, 11 are rarities that Malcolm has never programmed before, and 4 are repeat screenings of Festival favorites. There’s an emphasis on films made during the Occupation.

The first double bill, on Sunday November 6 at 12:30 pm, pairs Goupi Mains Rouge aka It Happened at the Inn (1943) by Jacques Becker, a murder mystery investigation into the aged victim’s family, with, at 2:30 pm, Georges Franju’s 1959 La tete contre les murs, The Head Against the Walls, in which Jean-Pierre Mocky plays a young man committed to a mental institution against his will. The astonishing cast includes Pierre Brasseur, Paul Meurisse, Anouk Aimee, and Charles Aznavour.

At 5 pm, there’s a triple bill (Malcolm is nothing if not generous), with three films by Pierre Granier-Deferre. Headlining the cast of Cloportes, aka The Metamorphosis of Woodlice (1965) are Lino Ventura, Charles Aznavour, Pierre Brasseur, Irina Demick, and Françoise Rosay, in a tale of revenge among thieves. La Veuve Couderc (The Widow Couderc, 1971), based on a Simenon novel, stars Simone Signoret as the widow who takes in an escaped convict, played by Alain Delon.

La tete contre les murs/The Head Against the Walls

Le train (The Last Train, 1973) at 8:30 is also based on a Simenon novel, set during the Occupation as Jean-Louis Trintignant meets Romy Schneider as both of them are trying to escape France before the German army enters it.

On Monday, November 7 the evening double bill at 6:30 pm is devoted to a tribute to the blonde Mylene Demongeot, who Malcolm calls “criminally overlooked” in one of his Substack columns.

Mylene Demongeot and Henri Vidal in Une Manche et la Belle/A Kiss for a Killer

In Une manche et la belle aka A Kiss for a Killer (1957), by Henri Verneuil, Demengeot’s femme fatale ensorcels her rich aunt’s new husband, and together they go the Double Indemnity/Out of the Past route, a la Française.

At 8:30, Cette nuit là (That Night, 1958), by Maurice Cazeneuve, with Maurice Ronet as Demongeot’s jealous husband, in which a workplace love triangle goes bad.

The second part of “The French Had a Name For It 2022” begins on Saturday November 12 with a double bill of films by Edmond T. Greville, another favorite of Tavernier’s. Menaces (Threats, 1940), at 12;30 pm, takes place as World War II looms over the daily lives of the motley crew living in a modest apartment-hotel, whose inhabitants include Erich von Stroheim, Ginette Leclerc, and Mireille Balin.

At 2:30 pm follows Le diable souffle (The Devil’s Breathe, 1947), a claustrophobic tale of a few people trapped on an island – Charles Vanel among them — and driven nearly insane by their proximity and a constantly-blowing wind.

That evening’s double bill begins with another devilish title, Le main du diable (The Hand of the Devil, aka Sinners Carnival, 1943), in which a gruesome magical talisman — a left hand — bought cheaply by Pierre Fresnay, brings the devil into his life. (Tavernier’s movie about French filmmaking during the Occupation, the engrossing three-hour Laissez passer, aka Safe Conduct, (2002), was in part inspired by the filming of Le main du diable. You can – and should! – stream it for free on Kanopy.)

At 6:45 pm Sortileges (Spells, 1945), directed by Christian-Jacque (also shot during the Occupation, though released afterwards) takes place in a small French village haunted by superstition, in which a murder for money sets many romantic complications into motion.

The next day’s matinee, on Sunday November 13 at 12:30 pm, is a double-bill homage to actress Françoise Arnoul (1931—2021). La chatte (The Cat, 1958), by Henri Decoin, has Arnoul as a French Resistance fighter who falls in love with the German undercover intelligence agent who is trying to expose her. The script was written by, among others, Jacques Rémy, the father of director Olivier Assayas. At 2:15, Arnoul is accompanied by Eddie Constantine and both Pierre and Claude Brasseur, in Lucky Jo (1964) a comedy following the travails of a hapless group of criminals, directed by Michel Deville.

Françoise Arnoul in La chatte

The festival and evening concludes with a double bill featuring two “French Had a Name For It” and Malcolm favorites, the famed Jean Gabin and the under-appreciated-in-the-US Robert Hossein. Gabin stars as a French fugitive in Genoa in Rene Clement’s Au dela des grilles (The Walls of Malapaga, 1949), in which Gabin becomes embroiled with an Italian woman and her daughter. At 6:45, Hossein stars as a safecracker in a crime film based on a James Hadley Chase novel in which everything goes wrong that can go wrong; the influence of The Postman Always Rings Twice can also be discerned in Julien Duvivier’s Chair de poule (Highway Pickup, 1963).

Au dela des grilles (The Walls of Malapaga,

Robert Hossein in Chair de poule

After which the fans of French film noir will wander out to the mean streets of San Francisco, sad that another “The French Had a Name for It” festival has drawn to a dark and deadly end.

The full schedule with notes and info on buying tickets can be found at the MidCentury Productions website and the Roxie. Look for information on past festivals and mailing list sign-up.

Trailer Gallery below.

Meredith Brody, a graduate of both the Paris Cordon Bleu cooking school and USC film school, has been the restaurant critic for, among others, the Village Voice, LA Weekly, and SF Weekly, and has written for countless film magazines and websites including Cahiers du Cinema, Film Comment, and Indiewire. Her writings on books, theater, television, and travel have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Interview. She also contributes to EatDrinkFilms including her“Meals with Meredith,” where she talks about food and film with filmmakers at restaurants in northern California, writes about vintage cocktails and where she eats during film festivals at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. A selection of her EDF pieces are found here.

One could describe Meredith as “hooked on cinema” as she attends four-five films a day at many bay area and international festivals each year. Somebody has to do it. Read about her journey back to festivals after two years in pandemic mode. And her recent look back about how she fell in love with the movies.