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| Anatole Litvak: Cœur de Lilas (FR 1932). In an underworld haunt in Paris with Jean Gabin (as the jealous criminal Martousse), Fréhel (as the saloon singer La Douleur), André Luguet (as the undercover cop André Lucot) and Marcelle Romée (as the sex worker "Cœur de Lilas" caught in a triangle between her old lover Martousse and the new flame André). Please click on the photo to expand it. |
Coeur de Lilas / Lilac / Salaperäinen Pariisi / Lilas - grändens drottning.
FR 1932. Prod.: Jean Hulswit per Fifra.
Director: Anatole Litvak. Sog.: dalla pièce omonima (1921) di Charles-Henry Hirsch e Tristan Bernard. Scen.: Dorothy Farnum, Anatole Litvak, Serge Véber. F.: Curt Courant. Scgf.: Serge Piménoff. Mus.: Maurice Yvain.
Int.: Marcelle Romée (Lilas Couchoux, "Cœur de Lilas"), André Luguet (André Bardon, le jeune inspecteur), Jean Gabin (Martousse), Madeleine Guitty (Madame Charigoul), Carlotta Conti (Madame Novion), Marcel Delaître (Jean Darny), Lydie Villars ("La Crevette"), Fréhel ("La Douleur"), Paulette Fordyce (Madame Darny), Fernandel (testimone di nozze / le garçon d'honneur de la noce). 35 mm. 90’. Bn.
Songs: Maurice Yvain (comp.), Serge Veber (lyr.): "La môme caoutchouc" perf. Jean Gabin and Fréhel [« J'ai une petite gosse extra, Elle est en Gutta-percha, Élastique"] ; "Dans la rue" perf. Fréhel ; "Ne te plains pas que la mariée soit trop belle" perf. André Luguet and Fernandel.
Helsinki premiere: 28 Oct 1932 Kit-Cat, released by Suomi-Filmi Oy.
From: Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung
Restored in 2023 by Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung at Studio Hamburg laboratory using a combined duplicate negative. With funding provided by FFE – Förderprogramm Filmerbe (financed through BKM, federal states and FFA)
In German with English subtitles. E-subtitles in Italian by Sub-Ti Londra.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2024: Journeys Into Night: the World of Anatole Litvak
Viewed at Jolly Cinema, 26 June 2024
Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024): " An example of Litvak’s breathtaking early mastery, the titular Lilas is a prostitute suspected of having committed a murder. An undercover police inspector poses as a common worker out to dig up the evidence to convict her, only to fall in love with her. The transition from the sunny playfulness of his previous film to a tale of doomed love and crime was gradual as there was still song and dance in this, his first fully French production. Litvak subjects his characters to an amorous, swirling camera (the work of German cinematographer Curt Courant), relishing their fickle joys. Two smaller roles were given to then unknown Jean Gabin and Fernandel. By the time the film was released a year after production, Gabin was a rising star and the producers gave him top billing on the poster. He deserves it. He steals the show as soon as he appears. "
" Cœur de Lilas opens with a glorious crane shot of a military parade, slides over bridges, and runs along passing trains. In a miniature of the world on the move, children with paper helmets imitate the soldiers. The movement and length of the shots in this ten-minute-long sequence are in sync with the rhythm of the march and a blind organ grinder’s tune. Even the power cables that cut the smoggy skyline into parallel lines start to resemble pages of sheet music. A lengthy scene set in the judge’s room with characters walking in and out follows, and a restless camera and rapid editing captures the frenzy that leads to the judge convicting the wrong man. The middle section is set in a working class dive, a hotel frequented by ruffians, jobless labourers and fallen women where songs, cheap booze and thick smoke make the air heavy with lust. Finally, the last twenty minutes deals with the departure of the newly reunited lovers. Pouring rain and a Renoiresque outing make the final revelation – where the inspector holds back tears as he hands over his lover to the authorities – more shattering. The film then cuts back to the opening parade to close the circle. This time, the whistle of a train against the grey silence of the suburb proclaims the end of the day. Originally meant to be directed by Maurice de Canonge, Litvak’s work is a miracle of cinema that gives precedence to atmosphere over story; it heightens emotional impact through the minutest of details rather than attending to the action. " Ehsan Khoshbakht (Bologna Catalogue 2024)
AA: In Cœur de Lilas, Anatole Litvak gives Fréhel her first feature film role. The name of her character: La Douleur. Interestingly, there is no good translation for that name in English, Germanic or Scandinavian languages. In Finnish, she would be called Tuska. The legendary performer had started as a child during la Belle Époque over 30 years ago under the protection of la "Belle Otéro".
In the cinema, Fréhel had only appeared in Germaine Dulac's startling short "music video" Celles qui s'en font (FR 1930). Her searing "voice of fate" became a feature in the soundtrack of the French cinema of the 1930s, also in La Rue sans nom (Pierre Chenal, 1934), Amok (Fédor Ozep, 1934), Le Roman d'un tricheur (Sacha Guitry, 1936), Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937), La Rue sans joie (André Hugon, 1938, a remake of Die freudlose Gasse) and La Maison du Maltais (Pierre Chenal again, 1938).
Even more importantly, Litvak casts Jean Gabin in his most prophetic role so far. This is not yet classic Gabin, but he makes his presence felt. Like in Pépé le Moko, he appears with Fréhel, and they sing a song together, "La Môme caoutchuk".
A third giant, Fernandel, also appears in Cœur de Lilas, one of the five films he made during this first year of his as a film actor.
I keep thinking about the cinema's peculiar lineage of darkness that runs from Dostoevskyan Russia to Weimar to the French 1930s to Hollywood film noir, evident in the parcours of Anatole Litvak. He belonged to the founders of the French poetic cinema of the 1930s, and his arch was long. As late as 1947 in Hollywood he directed with Henry Fonda The Long Night, a remake of the Jean Gabin vehicle Le Jour se lève.
The poetry of the French films of the 1930s received its authority from death.
They are the opposite of "cosy crime". It was only 14 years after what was called The Great War. The first European industrial scale massacre destroyed received notions of heroism. Aesthetic categories of the beautiful and the sublime became meaningless in discussions of modern art. The heart of darkness had existed in colonialism. Now it came home to Europe, and in the 1930s the menace was growing again.
Cœur de Lilas is a detective story, a police procedural and a court drama. André Lucot (André Luguet), the policeman assigned to investigate the murder mystery, falls in love with the suspect, a sex worker known as Cœur de Lilas (Marcelle Romée). André becomes a partner in a violent triangle drama of jealousy, fighting his rival Martousse (Gabin). His romance is not a cover. There is a lavish wedding party. When Lilas finds out her husband's undercover mission, she gives up.
Marcelle Romée (1903-1932), Pensionnaire de la Comédie-Française, was considered one of the great hopes of the French cinema and theatre, but she suffered from depression. She escaped from hospital and committed suicide by jumping into the Seine.
We have reason to be grateful for the restoration of this remarkable film. Perhaps the source materials have been challenging, because the visual quality is uneven. Since much of the 35 mm print has good definition it is possible to deduce how it must have looked. Might the film have been shot in the early sound film aperture (Movietone)? The screening was in Academy as far as I remember.
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