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Reign of Terror (1949)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
24 February 1950 (Finland) morePlot:
The plot starts in France in the year 1794. Robespierre is sowing panic among his opponents with the only reason to take over the power of the state. more | add synopsisUser Comments:
A whole lotta French Revolution and Arlene Dahl, too moreCast
(Complete credited cast)| Robert Cummings | ... | Charles D'Aubigny | |
| Richard Basehart | ... | Maximilian Robespierre | |
| Richard Hart | ... | François Barras | |
| Arlene Dahl | ... | Madelon | |
| Arnold Moss | ... | Fouché | |
| Norman Lloyd | ... | Tallien | |
| Charles McGraw | ... | Sergeant | |
| Beulah Bondi | ... | Grandma Blanchard | |
| Jess Barker | ... | Saint Just |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
Spain:88 min | USA:89 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
Black and WhiteAspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Mono (Western Electric Sound System)Fun Stuff
Quotes:
Maximilian Robespierre: There's a man in Strasbourg who isn't afraid of anything. A man named Duval.Fouché: Duval?
Maximilian Robespierre: You know him?
Fouché: No, but I know his record. Five hundred executions in a single month. That's almost as good as yours, Max.
Maximilian Robespierre: I've sent for Duval. He arrives at the Blue Goose Inn tonight. You go there and bring him to the bakery. I'll meet him there.
Fouché: How will I know him?
Maximilian Robespierre: As one snake to another. You'll smell each other out.
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This early effort from Anthony Mann (who went on to direct such
classics as Winchester '73 and The Man from Laramie) contains
his typical fast-pacing as well as an alternation between
extraordinarily wide landscape shots and extreme closeups, plus
his trademark fight and horse scenes, but played against the
unlikely backdrop of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror
period. In addition to the stylistic tricks that Mann would later use in
his Westerns, one sees here as well a strong importation of the
noir aesthetic, with its extreme chiaroscuro, complex plotting and
otherwise amoral atmosphere, interestingly grafted onto an
18th-century period picture. A great example of the way style can
often transcend genre expectations.
Apart from these and other notable aesthetic techniques (the use
of extreme, menacing close-up being among the most pronounced), the picture is a great deal of fun, largely owing to the
conventions and limitations of B-level studio pictures that were
standard in its day. Specifically, much of the delight emerges from
the way that Mann fashions a worthwhile cinematic expression
(camp value and all) from resources that many critics might
adjudge second-rate. Rather than drown actors such as Bob
Cummings and Arlene Dahl in period accuracy that would
overwhelm their expressive range, the performers--the entire
picture, in fact--seems to be winking at the fact that it is cramming
the entire Terror into 87 action- and intrigue-packed minutes.
(Dahl-watchers will be especially delighted by her campy, vampy
hijinks as a potential double agent who can impersonate everyone
from the most elegant marquise to a chicken farmer's wife with
just a rearrangement of a few fashion accessories.)
Indeed, RoT packs all the familiar faces of the Revolution into the
action for their respective fifteen seconds of fame: the Marquis de
Lafayette, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just and even good-old
Napoleon, who shows up at the end for one of the picture's silliest,
most sublime moments.
To that end, pay special attention to Richard Basehart's portrayal of
the infamous tyrant Robespierre. Forget what you learned in
history class: Hollywood's version is a delightfully malevolent and
distinctly epicene figure, who struts about in a tight-fitting black silk
outfit, is said by other characters not to like women, and who has
placed his elegantly appointed, not-quite-Empire-style
headquarters in the same space as a torture chamber. You will
not be surprised that he's the sort of character who can undermine
the Revolution's hard-won ideals while having his wig powdered
or making a citron pressé into an exquisite goblet. Truth be told, he
seems more interested in the wig-powdering.
All in all, this is an entertaining--and sometimes delightfully
campy--picture whose lightweight aspects are counterpoised by a
strong and accomplished mise-en-scene and a delightful sense
of perversion. Check it out and lock it in!