This is one those pleasant surprises you get working through film history - an item that doesn't look all that promising but proves to be genuinely entertaining, outside of any historical significance.
By 1923, director René Leprince had his Pathé association with Fernand Zecca behind him and was a commercially established solo film maker. VENT DEBOUT featured then major French star Léon Mathot (a 1918 Count of monte Christo) in a substantial production. Derived from a popular novel, it hits its stride in the Conrad - Jack London scenes of sailing off the Breton Coast.
The opening is not all that promising with fifties-ish Mathot in obvious lip rouge, as a playboy yachtsman protected from the stress of earning a living by the family fortune. However letters tell him that the suicide of his father, after the failure of an island minerals speculation organised by his creditors, left him ruined. Among sealed cupboards he meets the bankers and learns that all that is left to him is three patches of barren island rocks, after he turns over the inheritance from his mother to cover debts.
A bearded friend of his father is sympathetic and arranges a position for Mathot on a fishing boat. This proves to be a grubby hell ship, where he finds an unshaven crew member bullying the ship's boy. After encounters that include a dangerous rope cutting, Leon, now cosmetics free, pulls a pistol and takes charge. "Desormais, je suis le maître ici!" Our hero and the boy become friends and on shore, their kit bags off-loaded on a rope, he visits the kid's aged mum in her simple home. However during the ship's visit to Le rocher d'Util the boy is killed. Mathot has to deliver his sea bag to the mother.
A month's break in Paris has him back in his tuxedo in front of a wobbling Moulin Rouge backcloth. "When honest people work we're sleeping." However with a shoe protruding from his pocket and bottles on the floor, Leon receives a visit from young Madeleine Renault, making her movie debut and registering as charming and natural, acting in a style that shows up the artificiality of the others. Soon we get her playing with a hat box full of kittens just to make the point.
A chip of malachite, retrieved on a visit to the rock inheritance, arouses the greed of the bankers. They conspire to buy back the leases.
The on-shore material is an unremarkable financial maneuvering melodrama but the ship scenes get attention - the rubbish-filled crew quarters and the deck and rigging with their maritime apparatus, shots filmed through the ropes as they leave and enter ports, along with some library footage of tuna fishing, go with the depiction of Mathot dominating the mean crew, who have already killed one man, and earning their respect. This and the performance by Renaud mean the film is still surprisingly involving.
Director Leprince's technique was basic. The below decks material never convinces us we are at sea and there are a few awkward edits but he manages the odd flourish, like Renaud's reflection in the window glass. His pacing and coverage are sufficient to hold attention and let the material assert. I'm curious about the team's other work.
An excellent newly restored copy on the Cinematheque Francaise's Henri web site shows some deterioration but remains watchable. The captions there are in French.
By 1923, director René Leprince had his Pathé association with Fernand Zecca behind him and was a commercially established solo film maker. VENT DEBOUT featured then major French star Léon Mathot (a 1918 Count of monte Christo) in a substantial production. Derived from a popular novel, it hits its stride in the Conrad - Jack London scenes of sailing off the Breton Coast.
The opening is not all that promising with fifties-ish Mathot in obvious lip rouge, as a playboy yachtsman protected from the stress of earning a living by the family fortune. However letters tell him that the suicide of his father, after the failure of an island minerals speculation organised by his creditors, left him ruined. Among sealed cupboards he meets the bankers and learns that all that is left to him is three patches of barren island rocks, after he turns over the inheritance from his mother to cover debts.
A bearded friend of his father is sympathetic and arranges a position for Mathot on a fishing boat. This proves to be a grubby hell ship, where he finds an unshaven crew member bullying the ship's boy. After encounters that include a dangerous rope cutting, Leon, now cosmetics free, pulls a pistol and takes charge. "Desormais, je suis le maître ici!" Our hero and the boy become friends and on shore, their kit bags off-loaded on a rope, he visits the kid's aged mum in her simple home. However during the ship's visit to Le rocher d'Util the boy is killed. Mathot has to deliver his sea bag to the mother.
A month's break in Paris has him back in his tuxedo in front of a wobbling Moulin Rouge backcloth. "When honest people work we're sleeping." However with a shoe protruding from his pocket and bottles on the floor, Leon receives a visit from young Madeleine Renault, making her movie debut and registering as charming and natural, acting in a style that shows up the artificiality of the others. Soon we get her playing with a hat box full of kittens just to make the point.
A chip of malachite, retrieved on a visit to the rock inheritance, arouses the greed of the bankers. They conspire to buy back the leases.
The on-shore material is an unremarkable financial maneuvering melodrama but the ship scenes get attention - the rubbish-filled crew quarters and the deck and rigging with their maritime apparatus, shots filmed through the ropes as they leave and enter ports, along with some library footage of tuna fishing, go with the depiction of Mathot dominating the mean crew, who have already killed one man, and earning their respect. This and the performance by Renaud mean the film is still surprisingly involving.
Director Leprince's technique was basic. The below decks material never convinces us we are at sea and there are a few awkward edits but he manages the odd flourish, like Renaud's reflection in the window glass. His pacing and coverage are sufficient to hold attention and let the material assert. I'm curious about the team's other work.
An excellent newly restored copy on the Cinematheque Francaise's Henri web site shows some deterioration but remains watchable. The captions there are in French.
