It's a wonderful wife — Christmas films and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Quai des Orfèvres Oh deer! — the final shot of All that Heaven Allows Publicising its usual seasonal screenings of Frank Capra’s 1946 morality tale It’s a Wonderful Life, the BFI proclaims that the film is as much part of Christmas "as tinsel and turkey” . Good cause then, to consider alternatives. Despite early grumbling from the House Un-American Activities Committee that Capra’s film was communist propaganda, as the decades have passed its mawkish rocking-chair Protestantism and some of the social attitudes that surface in it have passed from quaintly passé to cringeworthy. Of course something similar might be said of many twentieth century films (and we make allowances, don’t we) but It’s a Wonderful Life is offered up uncritically year after year as a timeless family classic, and implicit in the offer is that dissent would be the killjoy equivalent of ripping the fairy off the top of the tree and dropping her in the slop pot. As Andrew Gilcrest (Guardian, 22 Dec 2014), in a withering take-down, comments — the film has “more suburban prejudice than Margaret Thatcher at a Grantham fete.” Quite. Time to search for alternative seasonal delights. Christmas cheer — James Stewart, Rooney Mara Films with either “Christmas” or “Santa” in the title can be disqualified on sight. Better to look for great films that aren’t about Christmas but happen to have a Christmas in them. Douglas Sirk's All that Heaven Allows is a strong contender on the basis of the inclusion of snow, Christmas trees, family misery, and a cute but symbolically overwrought wild animal. But then again, perhaps those grown up children of Cary's are just a bit too irritating for a bit too long to compensate for watching Rock Hudson crouching in the snow and hand feeding a fawn for a few seconds. Last Christmas — Louise Brooks G.W.Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929) ends with a Christmas, but one so utterly existentially grim that even the most hardline turkey and tinsel refusenik would be severely taxed to detect the tiniest glimmer of seasonal comfort in it — Lulu (Louise Brooks) lies slain at the hands of Jack the Ripper, a starving Alwa (Franz Lederer) trudges wearily after the wobbly Salvation Army donkey cart, and only the drunken amoral old pimp Schigolch (Carl Götz) is happy, tucking into a complimentary Christmas pudding in the pub. Not tinseltown — Jack the Ripper contemplates the Salvation Army Christmas tree, Schigolch tucks in. Gustav Diesel, Carl Götz Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015) must surely be in with a chance as a modern seasonal classic. Not only does it have a romantically charged Christmas tree buying scene which is a clear homage to the one in All the Heaven Allows, it has a screenplay that pivots around the Christmas period and is a superbly crafted work that evokes the optimism of youth in mid-century America and defies the conservative social attitudes of the older establishment. And, of course, it's called Carol. Branching out — Jane Wyman in All that Heaven Allows, Cate Blanchett in Carol The spirit of Patricia Highsmith’s source novel The Price of Salt is faithfully, shrewdly, and beautifully transferred to the screen in Haynes' film. The inevitable changes, particularly the truncating of the road trip (interminable in the novel) into the key Christmas/New Year period, are necessary improvements in a screen adaptation for modern audiences. Therese (Rooney Mara), a trainee stage set designer in the book, aspires instead to be a photographer in the film. So as well as being relieved of heaving around cardboard scale models she can instead practice her camera verité on Carol (Cate Blanchett) while Carol chooses a Christmas tree in the snowy market, and eventually land a nice job at the New York Times. The private detective hired to spy on the two women, a lugubrious and somewhat inefficient old has-been in the novel, becomes a fit young practitioner of ironic impersonation and technical wizardry in the film. Although the final act takes place after an interval of time which encompasses substantial character development, including the establishment of Therese’s photographic career, somehow spring and summer are either elided or have not yet arrived — the wintery Edward Hopper light and texture of the Christmas episodes inhabit the whole film like a spell that must not be broken. The transition to the screen of the final paragraphs of The Price of Salt is so exquisitely true in Carol that a seasonal tear could roll down your cheek at its cinematic perfection, were it not already rolling there for Therese’s heart as she glides across the crowded restaurant towards Carol. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Quai des Orfèvres (1947) shares with Carol scenes of cold wintery streets occupied by hurrying figures in overcoats and hats, although here in post-Occupation France it mainly seems to be as bitterly cold indoors as out, and it actually ends on a snowy Christmas morning in Paris with peals of bells and a happy child throwing snowballs. Cold call — Maurice (at piano) and Jenny rehearse in a chilly theatre. Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair Made almost contemporaneously with It's a Wonderful Life, Clouzot’s film is part-love story part-musical part-backstage melodrama part-murder mystery and police procedural. It is set in a Christmas time Paris, and made within a film industry, recovering from the trauma of occupation and war. Although this is never treated explicitly (aside of a brief reference to black market butter) the characters are haunted or driven by mistrust and suspicion for much of the film. In this respect it continues the themes of Clouzot’s Le Corbeau (1943), made during his wartime involvement with the Nazi-controlled Continental Films. As if reflecting and marking Clouzot’s rehabilitation, though, at the end of Quai des Orfèvres the arrival of Christmas and the snowfall symbolically marks the restoration of love and trust between the characters and the fulfilment of promises. Light touch — Photographer Dora adjusts Jenny's pose. Simone Renant The film is set among the theatrical variety and musical artists of Paris and those who service them or control their fortunes, and many of the scenes are carried along by jaunty popular music, dance, and song, either in rehearsal or performance. It is not until over a third of the way into the film that the mighty Louis Jouvet, as police Inspector Antoine, wearily hauls himself out of his pyjamas and into the action. Even during the subsequent murder investigation his enquiries are seldom conducted without a lively background of music in theatres, cabarets, or cafes. In one thrilling scene Jouvet conducts a probing interrogation to the accompaniment of ambulatory fiddlers practicing an insanely accelerating Klezmer tune as his hapless victim’s alibi wobbles and cracks. Smokescreen — Inspector Antoine investigates the strange ways of theatre folk The film was the fourth most successful film in France in 1947 and this must be partly attributable to the array and variety of musical numbers and popular entertainment that is woven into the film, including a glimpse of an equestrian circus, and the convincing scenes of the close-knit backstage theatrical community which the Inspector is obliged to penetrate. At one point a theatre manager tells him “We’re just a big happy family”. “That’s what I’m starting to think” Antoine mutters sardonically as he retreats, nose to the trail. Onstage — Jenny Lamour Backstage — Jenny and admirers, Maurice (extreme right in background) looking to intervene. Back home — Jenny making her own dresses For its initial release in the USA the film was titled Jenny Lamour, the stage name of the principle female character. This explicit evocation of l’amour is perhaps a more apt title because, although Jouvet’s Inspector Antoine is a creation of genius and his police colleagues are vividly drawn, it is the various manifestations and modes of love and lust that weave through the story which compel. At the heart of the film is a married couple, singer Jenny (Suzy Delair) and composer and pianist Maurice (Bernard Blier), a rising popular musical duo. They clearly adore one another and Clouzot subtly makes it clear that they have a passionate sex life, but Jenny can’t restrain her natural flirtatiousness when she believes it will assist her career and Maurice is constantly enraged by petty and unfounded jealousy. Their friend and neighbour is Dora (Simone Renant), a thriving studio photographer who has been a platonic friend of Maurice’s since childhood but now carries a flame for Jenny. Although both Jenny and Maurice seem to be unaware of this, it does not, of course, elude Inspector Antoine. Looking at you — the great character actor Charles Dullin as the abusive film producer Jenny unwisely visits the home of an abusive industrialist and film producer, Brignon (Charles Dullin), believing that he will get her into films on the basis of her talent, though of course he has other ideas. Le plus ça change, Harvey Weinstein. We later learn that the producer has assaulted Jenny and in self-defence she has struck his head with a champagne bottle and believes she has killed him. Maurice has learned of the assignation and goes to the house with a gun, bent on killing Brignon and having constructed an elaborate alibi involving conspicuously visiting a variety theatre twice. He finds Brignon already dead and flees the house to discover that his car has been stolen, comically making the timing of his alibi plan nearly impossible to achieve. Jenny tells Dora that she has killed Brignon but has left her fox fur at the house in her panic. Out of devotion to Jenny, the ever cool Dora immediately goes to Brignon’s house and retrieves the fur, also enterprisingly wiping fingerprints from a glass. Therefore all three friends have visited the house of the murdered man during the fatal evening and soon attract the dogged scrutiny of Inspector Antoine. Maurice — Jenny has words Why the long face? — the circus can't help Maurice with his alibi Serious bother — Maurice with comic colleague There is no shortage of moral complexity in Quai des Orfèvres. Maurice goes to Brignon’s house with every intention of killing him, and possibly even Jenny as well, but an opportunist intruder has beaten him to it. Dora’s relatively comfortable lifestyle is enabled by a side-line taking naked photos of showgirls to order for Brignon. The Inspector confiscates the licence of a frail elderly taxi driver to coerce him into identifying Dora in a police line-up, he interrogates Jenny as she is changing in her dressing room, and he ignores, although doesn’t participate in, the rough tactics of his subordinates. And just in case you're minded to think that the real murderer of the repellant sex abuser Brignon may have done everyone a favour, he has also killed a young police officer and a bank cashier. An Inspector calls — Antoine interrogates Jenny at an inconvenient time The Inspector is under pressure from his superiors to bring to justice the killer of a man who, although universally seen as obnoxious, is immensely rich and powerful. But he also has his own reasons for wanting the case wound up by Christmas. A wounded veteran of the Foreign Legion, he is raising a beloved child, a North African boy of nine or so whom he refers to and cares for as his son, and he has promised the boy that they will have a celebratory meal before he returns to school. Late in the film, when the Christmas snow is falling right on cue and the real murderer (the career criminal who stole Maurice’s car) is about to be charged, thereby leaving the three friends cleared, Antoine tells the enigmatic Dora that he has grown to like her, adding “We’re the same type. We’ll never have a chance with women”. The photographer and the eccentric detective, outsiders and meticulous observers both, their struggles and compromises in a wicked world momentarily reflecting their common humanity and unfulfilled desires. Eye for detail — the sleuth and the photographer get acquainted Christmas Day brings resolution and forgiveness. The officials and journalists who have spent a night of suspense and disputation at the Quai have dispersed to their homes, in one case bearing a Christmas turkey. Jenny has put up a tinsel laden Christmas tree to welcome Maurice home after his near suicide in a police cell, saved only after the screams of a friendly prostitute in the adjacent lock-up have woken the slumbering guard, and released when the real murderer confesses. Inspector Antoine pays the reunited couple a final visit to return Jenny’s fox fur, which has been held as evidence, and then plods away into the snow to take his boy for the promised meal, pelted with a well-aimed snowball for his trouble. Merry Christmas everyone — the Inspector and his boy on their way to celebrate
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