This incredibly funny film, considered almost lost, was furnished with a wonderful new score by Fay Lovsky in April 2005 and shown once in the Filmmuseum in Amsterdamlocation of the sole remaining copy. Despite being virtually unknown, tickets sold-out that night.
Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel deserves a world tour. Even better: a Duvivier retrospective (Sounds by Lovsky!). The action is truly of a rare-seen kind.
Considering the equipment that had to be carried in those days, it is quite a marvel how advanced this thing is shot. Any available story is rendered inferior to the slapstick-packed action which includes a downhill chase by plane, vertical fighting in the iron skeleton of the Eiffel towerapparently without safety gear involved, combined with brilliant characterslater eagerly copied; e.g. George Remi, author the Tintin books.
Achillis Saturnin, making a meagre living as one half of the "Siamese twins", a ridiculous circus act, inherits a dazzling sum of 159 million francs, only to have his double steal it behind his back. The impostor installs himself in the mansion of the deceased, adjusting smoothly to an overdone servant-keeping-class kind of lifestyle.
But more rivals lie in wait; a spooky sect under the name of Ku-Klux-Eiffel, known for jamming French broadcasts with coded messages transmitted from the Eiffel tower, comically terrorize the impostor down to his nightmares. Driven to panic, the man goes into hiding in Paris, where he discovers that Achillis, Silvanie and her younger brother, have lost their job at the circus and are dependent on alms.
Afraid to return to the mansion himself, he sends Achillis to fill in his place in promise of 500.000 francs. Achillis agrees. While living it up, throwing parties and such, he is kidnapped by the Knights of Ku-Klux-Eiffel who take him to their castle high up the mountains. Taking it for a prank at first, Achillis only manages to escape at the very last moment. Along the way he gets hold of the key to the Ku-Klux-Eiffel code and one of their receiving devices. Able, thus, to intercept their messages he gains in to exposing the entire sect.
It takes another kidnap and escape through a labyrinth, the unmasking of a human chameleon, getting passed the mysterious Li-Ho-Ha (a creepy, apparently Chinese-or so adviser of the sect's leader), and the notorious Eiffel-tower-climb to bring this marvelous film to a happy end.
Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel deserves a world tour. Even better: a Duvivier retrospective (Sounds by Lovsky!). The action is truly of a rare-seen kind.
Considering the equipment that had to be carried in those days, it is quite a marvel how advanced this thing is shot. Any available story is rendered inferior to the slapstick-packed action which includes a downhill chase by plane, vertical fighting in the iron skeleton of the Eiffel towerapparently without safety gear involved, combined with brilliant characterslater eagerly copied; e.g. George Remi, author the Tintin books.
Achillis Saturnin, making a meagre living as one half of the "Siamese twins", a ridiculous circus act, inherits a dazzling sum of 159 million francs, only to have his double steal it behind his back. The impostor installs himself in the mansion of the deceased, adjusting smoothly to an overdone servant-keeping-class kind of lifestyle.
But more rivals lie in wait; a spooky sect under the name of Ku-Klux-Eiffel, known for jamming French broadcasts with coded messages transmitted from the Eiffel tower, comically terrorize the impostor down to his nightmares. Driven to panic, the man goes into hiding in Paris, where he discovers that Achillis, Silvanie and her younger brother, have lost their job at the circus and are dependent on alms.
Afraid to return to the mansion himself, he sends Achillis to fill in his place in promise of 500.000 francs. Achillis agrees. While living it up, throwing parties and such, he is kidnapped by the Knights of Ku-Klux-Eiffel who take him to their castle high up the mountains. Taking it for a prank at first, Achillis only manages to escape at the very last moment. Along the way he gets hold of the key to the Ku-Klux-Eiffel code and one of their receiving devices. Able, thus, to intercept their messages he gains in to exposing the entire sect.
It takes another kidnap and escape through a labyrinth, the unmasking of a human chameleon, getting passed the mysterious Li-Ho-Ha (a creepy, apparently Chinese-or so adviser of the sect's leader), and the notorious Eiffel-tower-climb to bring this marvelous film to a happy end.