This above-average film noir is strangely enough the only film directed by Maurice Cazeneuve. Film is a collaborative medium of course and he is privileged here to have the services of the legendary cinematographer Leonce-Henri Burel and the excellent editor Louisette Hautecoeur.
French cinema, in whatever genre, has always been as much about character than plot and ones interest is maintained here by the three principal actors.
Both Maurice Ronet and Mylene Demongeot are excellent and really convince as husband and wife whose love for each other helps them face the consequences of his moment of madness. Jean Servais never disappoints. He invariably plays shady characters but always gives them depth and a certain melancholy which makes them somehow appealing.
There is also strong support here from Francoise Prevost as an exceedingly sensuous secretary and Hubert Noel as a somewhat neurotic blackmailer.
Lots of 'noirish' touches , classy production design by Jacques Chalvet and the charismatic cast make this very watchable indeed.
7 Reviews
A Mockery of Morality And Justice
boblipton21 October 2019
Maurice Ronet is the art director for Jean Servais' magazine. He is married to Mylène Demongeot. Servais wants her. He torments Ronet at work, offers her a couple of million francs. Ronet goes to his house, and when he sees Servais leaving his house, he follows him and kills him. Only it's not Servais. That's when his real troubles begin.
Maurice Cazeneuve's is a film noir of the middle and upper classes of French society, where respectable men have base passions which their money and power allow them to exercise freely... a dark world that recent news stories about Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein show us to still the one we live in. It's certainly drier than most French noir, but still shot in that glistening, shadowy light that mocks beauty, and which turns justice into a matter of luck.
Maurice Cazeneuve's is a film noir of the middle and upper classes of French society, where respectable men have base passions which their money and power allow them to exercise freely... a dark world that recent news stories about Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein show us to still the one we live in. It's certainly drier than most French noir, but still shot in that glistening, shadowy light that mocks beauty, and which turns justice into a matter of luck.
Decent Parisian noir
gridoon202425 March 2024
According to IMDb trivia, in 1963 Stanley Kubrick listed this film as one of the ten best of all time (until then); you are not likely to agree. The fact that it was Maurice Cazeneuve's ONLY feature / non-TV film ever may be more telling. The first half is slow and uneventful, but the film picks up energy with the arrival of the polite-yet-slimy blackmailer played by Hubert Noël: even though he is a face unknown to me, whereas the three leads are famous French film stars, he gives the best performance here. There is also a fairly tense climactic sequence. Overall, an average example of its genre. **1/2 out of 4.
An underrated film noir from France
searchanddestroy-116 November 2014
I am surprised that this film is not more widely known, especially if Stanley Kubrick said that it was one of the ten best films in the world. Great actors such as likes of Maurice Ronet, Jean Servais, Mylène Demongeot, cast here...And an interesting story inspired from a Michel Lebrun's novel. A story that, in the beginning, could make you think of UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE. But only in the first part. Not a gangster movie, such as the ones we usually watched in the fifties, but rather an ordinary citizen tale, a character which the audiences could identify in. I don't know the director, never heard of this dude. The plot has already been told in the plot line. Some good sequences, a good photography. An exciting story, yes Sir !! Stanley Kubrick was damn right.
French film noir at its finest
esman1215 February 2023
I must have watched hundreds of film noir until now, including many French ones, and I can tell that "Cette nuit là..." is, in my opinion, a true masterpiece. Directed by Maurice Cazeneuve, this movie tells the story of Jean, artistic director of a fashion magazine in Paris, married to the beautiful Sylvie. They both work for André Reverdy, who openly covets Sylvie, which of course frustrates Jean more and more... Toxic love, big money, sexual tension, intense paranoia and cold blackmail : you get it all with this one. The Altonesque photography provided by Léonce-Henri Burel is in itself a definition of what "film noir" means as a style and perfectly depicts a mesmerizing portrait of Paris in the 1950s. Based on Michel Lebrun's novel titled "Un silence de mort" ("A deadly silence") released in 1957, the construction of the plot and the different characters were designed in such a way that one never gets bored while watching this film. No wonder why director Stanley Kubrick himself praised this French film noir as one of the best movies ever made...
average French "noir"
myriamlenys10 November 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Sylvie and Jean are a young, handsome married couple. Both work in the art and publicity business, Jean as an artist/designer and Sylvie as a model. Sadly enough their common employer lusts after Sylvie, who is a most beautiful woman. Her husband does not like these increasingly heavy-handed advances...
I thought "Cette nuit-là" began in a promising manner and built up a nicely dark and tense plot full of lust, resentment and jealousy. However, halfway or so the movie began to desintegrate, as the psychological development of the characters began to go awry. For instance, in the beginning the female protagonist seemed to show both a lazy amorality and a purring satisfaction, like a cat that knows exactly where the milk is kept. As a result she seemed the kind of woman willing to show a fine garter to a gentleman connaisseur, for a fee. It was far more difficult to imagine her as a faithful and devoted spouse.
As to the end - well, I always supposed that mean-spirited old roués were made of sterner stuff...
Still, lovers of female beauty can feast their eyes on a young Mylène Demongeot, who represents a very Gallic idea of pulchritude : blonde, slender, long-limbed, girlishly innocent one moment, more elegant and sophisticated the next. The great beauty of the actress is further enhanced by some stunning Balmain creations, including a "rose" dress that must have cost the world. Since the movie was filmed in black and white one can only guess at the colours of the dress ; me, I hope that la maison Balmain used at least some of that pink known as "thigh of a nymph in love"...
I thought "Cette nuit-là" began in a promising manner and built up a nicely dark and tense plot full of lust, resentment and jealousy. However, halfway or so the movie began to desintegrate, as the psychological development of the characters began to go awry. For instance, in the beginning the female protagonist seemed to show both a lazy amorality and a purring satisfaction, like a cat that knows exactly where the milk is kept. As a result she seemed the kind of woman willing to show a fine garter to a gentleman connaisseur, for a fee. It was far more difficult to imagine her as a faithful and devoted spouse.
As to the end - well, I always supposed that mean-spirited old roués were made of sterner stuff...
Still, lovers of female beauty can feast their eyes on a young Mylène Demongeot, who represents a very Gallic idea of pulchritude : blonde, slender, long-limbed, girlishly innocent one moment, more elegant and sophisticated the next. The great beauty of the actress is further enhanced by some stunning Balmain creations, including a "rose" dress that must have cost the world. Since the movie was filmed in black and white one can only guess at the colours of the dress ; me, I hope that la maison Balmain used at least some of that pink known as "thigh of a nymph in love"...
(eventual) blow-up
dbdumonteil6 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The only theatrically effort released by Maurice Cazeneuve ,who worked for TV. It will never be regarded as a masterpiece but it does not deserve to be neglected as it has been either, so a rehabilitation of sorts is in order.
The French fifties were great as far as thrillers are concerned .This one has a rather derivative screenplay ,but the main difference is the role of the woman : although aware of her huge sex appeal ,she refuses to be considered a woman as a sex object;she stands by her man ,who seems rather frail compared to her ,she has a protective side to her ,not the kind of woman you meet in the great Films Noirs of the fifties, those of Clouzot,Duvivier,Decoin,Saslavsky or Hossein .
There's some implausibilities in the story ,but acting and directing make up for it.Ronet (who was featured in two great thrillers "Plein Soleil" and " Ascenseur Pour l'Echafaud in this era)gives a tormented performance of a jealous man ,humiliated by his wealthy boss ;Demongeot finds a second good part after "Les Sorcières De Salem" :not a bimbo,but a mature woman,to whom love is not a four- letter word.Servais is excellent ,in the part of an aging lubricious swine (in Becker's "Rue De L'Estrapade"(1952) , he dared to play an overtly bisexual man).His nasal voice and his bloated face make him the perfect villain.And let's not forget Françoise Prevost ,as the lucid secretary ,whose playing recalls that of Madeleine Robinson.
Directing is sometimes impressive ,mainly in the first part: the luxury apartment of the wealthy boss and the bar are masterfully used ;and the photographs of Demongeot who are everywhere ,on the walls,in the magazines,in newspapers kiosks create an obsession .In this matter ,the last picture is great and makes us forget the rather disappointing ending.
But this is essentially psychological drama ,writer Michel Lebrun being closer to Simenon than to Boileau-Narcejac.
The French fifties were great as far as thrillers are concerned .This one has a rather derivative screenplay ,but the main difference is the role of the woman : although aware of her huge sex appeal ,she refuses to be considered a woman as a sex object;she stands by her man ,who seems rather frail compared to her ,she has a protective side to her ,not the kind of woman you meet in the great Films Noirs of the fifties, those of Clouzot,Duvivier,Decoin,Saslavsky or Hossein .
There's some implausibilities in the story ,but acting and directing make up for it.Ronet (who was featured in two great thrillers "Plein Soleil" and " Ascenseur Pour l'Echafaud in this era)gives a tormented performance of a jealous man ,humiliated by his wealthy boss ;Demongeot finds a second good part after "Les Sorcières De Salem" :not a bimbo,but a mature woman,to whom love is not a four- letter word.Servais is excellent ,in the part of an aging lubricious swine (in Becker's "Rue De L'Estrapade"(1952) , he dared to play an overtly bisexual man).His nasal voice and his bloated face make him the perfect villain.And let's not forget Françoise Prevost ,as the lucid secretary ,whose playing recalls that of Madeleine Robinson.
Directing is sometimes impressive ,mainly in the first part: the luxury apartment of the wealthy boss and the bar are masterfully used ;and the photographs of Demongeot who are everywhere ,on the walls,in the magazines,in newspapers kiosks create an obsession .In this matter ,the last picture is great and makes us forget the rather disappointing ending.
But this is essentially psychological drama ,writer Michel Lebrun being closer to Simenon than to Boileau-Narcejac.
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