Vetern Maurice Tourneur liked doing it the hard way. Reviled in France because he had chosen to work in America in the early years of the 20th century (thus qualifying him as a Draft Dodger WWI style, despite the fact that he was there long before 1914) he was also guilty of 'working for the enemy' in WWII when he made five films for Continental, the German-run French film company. The fact that he was an innovative and often brilliant filmmaker cut little ice. He made only two films after leaving Continental and in both, Apres l'amour and this one, he remained loyal to his technical colleagues at Continental employing cinematographer Armand Thiraud (Apres), Writer Paul LeChanois, Editor Christian Gaudin and Sound man Georges Leblond (both on this one). Although he lived for several years more the accident he suffered after completing this film left him unable to continue his career. Which makes it just as well that what was to be his 99th and final film turned out to be a gem. Tourneur was a Master at light and shade, camera angles, coaxing the best out of actors, technique ... in fact he was a Master, period. Watch, for example, how he superimposes double-exposures to convey flashbacks to the previous affair of Paul Meurisse and Simone Signoret or how he utilises the Two-Shot in their dialogue scenes in the Present. From the moment Meurisse, who has been hired to lift a necklace from a magnificent château, realizes that the necklace belongs to actress and ex-girlfriend Signoret, he is doomed. Crossing his employers he enjoys a last evening with Signoret before a hail of bullets from a passing car write finis to a beautiful friendship. As a student of irony I relish the link, twenty years on, when Meurisse, as Luc Jardine, head of the Resistance, orders the execution of Mathilde (Signoret) in Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece L'Armee des ombres, and she is duly gunned down by her colleagues from a passing car but shot from the opposite angle. This is a really fine film and should be sought out.
Review of Impasse des deux anges
