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Le Dernier Tournant (1939)

Director: Pierre Chenal

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From Time Out Film Guide

When it comes to noir, we Anglos may have appropriated the word, but the thing was the result of the most delicate Franco-American reciprocity, well illustrated here. Preceding Visconti (Ossessione), Garnett and Rafelson, this is the first adaptation of James M Cain's 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, with its triangle of slobbish husband/bored wife/tough drifter. Apart from an accommodation with Michel Simon's star status, which required the husband to live longer, it's a faithful transposition of the novel's tone and content. But it's the style of the actors - Gravey's soulful eyes and mournful presence, Luchaire's other worldly beauty and air of resignation - which makes the difference, nudging the distinctively French world of 'poetic realism' and that of American pulp finally and irrevocably into alignment. (Luchaire's career stopped in 1940; she was the daughter of pro-Nazi writer Jean Luchaire, shot after the Liberation, and she herself was dead at 29.) BBa.

Author: BBa 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Pierre Chenal

Cast: Fernand Gravey, Michel Simon, Corinne Luchaire, Robert Le Vigan, Florence Marly, Marcel Vallée full cast

Genre(s): Film Noir

Duration: 90 mins


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