Le domino vert (1935)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Directors:

Henri Decoin
Herbert Selpin

Writers:

Marcel Aymé (writer)
Harald Bratt (writer)

Release Date:

27 December 1935 (France)

Plot Keywords:

Color In Title | Based On Play

Cast

Danielle Darrieux	...	Hélène de Richemond / Marianne
Charles Vanel	...	Nebel
Maurice Escande	...	Henri Bruquier, le critique d'art
Daniel Lecourtois	...	Naulin
Marcel Herrand	...	M. de Richemond
Jany Holt	...	Lily Bruquier
Jeanne Pérez
Henri Beaulieu	...	M. de Fallec (as Henry Beaulieu)
Henry Bonvallet		(as Henri Bonvallet)
Georges Douking		(as Douking)
Henri Guisol		(as Henry Guisol)
Lucien Dayle
Marcelle Géniat	...	Mme de Fallec
André Burgère	...	Robert Zamietti

Also Known As:

The Green Domino (International: English title)

Runtime:

France:84 min

Country:

Germany

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Universum Film (UFA)

Movie Connections:

Alternate language version of Der grüne Domino (1935)

Decoin/Darrieux:film n°1

This is the first time Henry Decoin teamed with star Danielle Darrieux(whose career spans the whole story of the French cinema after the beginning of the talkies:think about it,she's one of the Ozon's "huit femmes" in 2002!!!)

So almost 70 years before.."le domino vert";the construction of the movie is weird indeed:a short introduction,then a very long flashback(more than an hour) ,then back to the present in search of the truth:because it's primarily a detective story mixed with melodrama elements:a young girl from a chic milieu ,raised by relatives,discovers that her father killed his wife ,and besides,that he had a lover ,Darrieux's mother.Flashback(Darrieux plays the two parts,mother and daughter).Was he guilty? A young lawyer helps the daughter ,twenty years later,to find what really happened;this last part is definitely the weakest link:their investigation lasts barely ten minutes on the screen and a ten-year old could guess the solution of the riddle.

This is mainly a curios ,but it reveals Decoin's metier:the psychological thriller.This is only a sketch but it predates his great achievements of the forties and the fifties:"les inconnus dans la maison" "non coupable" "la vérité sur Bébé Donge" (again with Darrieux )or "bonnes à tuer".One wishes that some day they will reissue "malefices"(1962) from a sensational Boileau-Narcejac (diabolique,vertigo)screenplay ,which is very hard to see.