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La Nuit fantastique
1942 Comedy / Fantasy / Romance
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Credits
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Director: Marcel L'Herbier
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Script: Louis Chavance, Maurice Henry, Henri Jeanson, Marcel L'Herbier
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Photo: Pierre Montazel
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Music: Maurice Thiriet
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Cast: Fernand Gravey (Denis),
Micheline Presle (Irène),
Saturnin Fabre (Thalès),
Charles Granval (Adalbert),
Bernard Blier (Lucien),
Marcel Lévesque (Tellier),
Christiane Nère (Nina),
Jean Parédès (Cadet),
Zita Fiore (L'assistante),
Michel Vitold (Boris),
Roger Caccia (Le fou-pendule),
Paul Frankeur (Le patron du bistrot),
Marguerite Ducouret (La maraîchère)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 103 min; B&W
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Aka: Fantastic Night
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Summary
Denis is an impoverished student in Paris who scrapes a living by working nights in the
Halles market. Sick with near-exhaustion, he begins to dream about an elusive woman
in white, with whom he becomes infatuated – to the chagrin of his girlfriend Nina.
One night, Denis falls asleep in the street and is awoken when a stranger brushes past
him. Believing he is still dreaming, Denis is surprised to see the woman of his
dreams. He follows her into a restaurant when he is invited to join the strange
woman, Irène, and her even stranger entourage. Her father, an illusionist
named Thalès, intends to marry her to his assistant, Cadet, but Irène has
other plans. Denis soon suspects something is amiss and, sure enough, he realises
that Thalès had hatched a dastardly scheme to rob his daughter of her fortune.
Is Denis dreaming or can this be for real…?
Review
La Nuit fantastique is an intriguing work from
director Marcel L'Herbier, who is probably best known for his landmark silent classics
such L’Argent
(1929). Inspired by the films of Georges Méliès, L’Herbier
was presumably aiming to create a film that is every bit as baffling and visually stunning
as Méliès’ films had been when they were first shown. To a large
extent, L’Herbier is successful – La Nuit
fantastique is quite unlike any other French films of its period, giving far greater
emphasis to visual technique than conventional storytelling devices. Whilst L’Herbier
is no where near as inventive as Méliès was in his day, there are some very
memorable sequences in the film, most notably the eerie scene where the film’s hero
and heroine are seen from the point of view of a sinister blind man.
Whilst the film wins several points for originality and has an infectious sense of
fun throughout, its narrative structure is painfully weak and it is hard to warm to the
film’s hero (played rather blandly by Fernand Gravey). However, Micheline
Presle is stunning as the ethereal and slightly unhinged Irène, although it is
Saturnin Fabre who steals the show with a deliciously over-the-top portrayal of self-mocking
villainy.
On the downside, the plot appears to meander rather aimlessly for the
most part, and it’s all too evident that the action is taking place within the confines
of a studio. However, there are plenty of good laughs along the way, the whole thing
feeling like a melange of a madcap Hollywood farce from the 1920s and a rather good Christmas
pantomime – but garnished with the mood of a film
noir thriller and a soupçon of visual poetry reminiscent of the work of
Vigo and Cocteau. It may not be L’Herbier’s best film but La
Nuit fantastique is probably the one that ranks as his most gloriously off-the-wall
and unpredictable.
© James Travers 2005
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