Le grand jeu (1934)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Jacques Feyder

Writers:

Jacques Feyder (screenplay) &
Charles Spaak (screenplay)

Release Date:

1934 (Austria)

Genre:

Drama

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Marie Bell	...	Florence / Irma
Pierre Richard-Willm	...	Pierre Martel / Pierre Muller
Charles Vanel	...	Clément
Georges Pitoëff	...	Nicolas Ivanoff (as Georges Pitoeff)
Camille Bert	...	Le colonel
André Dubosc	...	Bernard Martel
Pierre Larquey	...	Gustin
Lyne Clevers	...	La môme Dauville
Harry Nestor	...	Aziani (as Nestor Ariani)
Pierre de Guingand	...	Le capitaine
Henri Chomette
Louis Florencie	...	Fenoux (as Florencie)
Pierre Labry	...	Le cantinier
Claude Marcy	...	La voix d'Irma
Olga Velbria	...	Aïchouch

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Tobis-Klangfilm)

Filming Locations:

Agadir, Morocco

Company:

Films de France

Movie Connections:

Remade as Le grand jeu (1954)

That obscure object of desire..

The screenplay of Jacques Feyder is very modern:in its own way,it predates , by 25 and more than 40 years respectively Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and Bunuel's "object of desire" .

A man has to join the legion étrangere to avoid a scandal.He leaves his lover,a selfish spoiled woman ,whom he is always in love with and heads for the desert:there ,in the brothel,he meets a hooker who extremely resembles her former woman.Is she THE ONE?Sometimes it seems she is and sometimes she isn't.Marie Bell's voice was dubbed for the prostitute's part,so there were actually two actresses almost like in Bunuel's last film.

However,it seems to me that when you watch the movie some 70 years after something is lacking and it is madness.The silent era could create it and whereas we would need folie à deux,amour fou,we're left with melodrama.Pierre Richard-Wilm was a rather bland handsome actor while Marie Bell has not enough presence,not enough ambiguity.Françoise Rosay ,the madam who draws cards ("the major arcana" is the meaning of the title)and discovers very strange things about the future,-which does nothing but accentuates the melodramatic side-,and Charles Vanel as the "house"'s owner easily outstrip both of them.There is one scene Luis Bunuel would not have disowned: Marie Bell,taking flypaper down with Vanel's lustful eye on her legs.

The Légion Etrangère as a way out when you were threatened in your native country was a permanent feature in the years before WW2:that was also the subjects of "Beau Geste" and Duvivier's "la bandera" .But whereas the two other works focus on every aspect of a Légionnaire's life,in Feyder's movie ,we almost never move out of the brothel.I hardly exaggerate.It's not surprising it was stigmatized by the Catholic Office of Cinema :what else could they do? Marcel Carné was influenced by Jacques Feyder.Not only he was his assistant,but he also met his favorite actress Arletty while they were making "pension mimosas".And Feyder's wife Françoise Rosay starred in Carné's first real movie "Jenny".

Robert Siodmak made a remake in 1954,Jean-Claude Pascal,Gina Lollobrigida and Arletty taking on Richard-Willm's ,Bell's and Rosay's parts.It was a disappointment.