J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (1959)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Michel Gast

Writers:

Jacques Dopagne (writer)
Michel Gast (writer)

Release Date:

26 June 1959 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Black Man... Don't Let The Sun Set On You in This Town. . .

Plot:

Joe Grant, a light-skinned African-African, heads to a small Southern town to investigate the lynching death of his brother...

Plot Keywords:

Brother | Lynching | Miscegenation | Race Relations | Love

Cast

Christian Marquand	...	Joe Grant
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Claude Berri
Christian Boisseau
Daniel Cauchy	...	Sonny
Jean Droze	...	Ted
Renate Ewert	...	Sylvia Shannon
Catherine Fonteney
Gisèle Gallois
Lud Germain
Paul Guers	...	Stan Walker
Monique Just
Fernand Ledoux	...	Horace Chandley
Antonella Lualdi	...	Lizbeth Shannon
Marina Petrova	...	Sheila
Jean Sorel	...	Elmer
Marie-Blanche Vergnes
André Versini	...	Lex

Also Known As:

I Spit on Your Grave (USA)

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) (1959) | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company:

Sipro

Trivia:

Boris Vian, the author of the novel on which the movie was based, died during the preview of J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (1959). He disowned the adaptation of his novel.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Drive-In Follies (1989)

Boris Vian disowned it reportedly...

I've not read his novel,so I will not argue,but all that I can say is that the film is a complete disaster ;today in France everybody's forgotten all about the movie .Director Michel Gast has made only four movies in total.

The leads ,Antonella Lualdi and Christian Marquand ,had teamed up the precedent year in Astruc's excellent "Une Vie";but Gast left them to their own devices and it has to be seen to be believed.How could we believe Marquand is a black man with a white skin? (Vian's book was a pastiche ,they say)How could we believe that Daniel Cauchy (see Melville's "Bob le Flambeur") and Jean Sorel (Jean Sorel?) are "rebels without a cause "James Dean style?(the electric chair scene takes grotesque to new limits).And this macho racist man played by Paul Guers?And the old man played by veteran Fernand Ledoux ,the best actor in the whole movie,but in his worst part ever.

The script is so poor (I do not speak of the lines,particularly those when Guers tells Lualdi she is restive and he will take pleasure in taming her) it's difficult to catch up with the plot.The form is Nouvelle Vague style complete with jazz with borrowings from the American movies (the ending recalls Lang's "You only live once" and too many chase movies).If it's a plea against racism,then it thoroughly fails in its purpose.