I must admit to some trepidation in taking on Flicker Alley’s three-disc collection of this serial – who has the time for the best part of seven hours of serial especially when the British summer is actually happening outside, as we speak!?
But, after a couple of episodes still peaking at the
garden, nipping out to clear some weeds and eat salad, I was hooked and it
turns out that you can very easily make the time to find out what happens in
this tense thriller. Unlike many earlier serials, La maison du mystère (The
House of Mystery), isn’t really episodic and plays like the chapters in the
book, by Jules Mary, it was based on. It’s effectively one long narrative often
picking up directly after the events of the previous episode.
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| Ivan |
As such it holds your attention and you never feel
there’s any padding or artificial rounding off to make the stories fit within
the format: the film-makers respected their audience and only now can we see
their full intent by watching each element back-to-back – there was no box-set
gorging in 1923; you had to wait a week at a time!
For a French production this is, of course very Russian
with Alexandre Volkoff directing and Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine)
acting and co-scripting with Volkoff. The two maintain a superb continuity
throughout and keep a tight rein on the narrative which could so easily sprawl.
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| Caught |
The tone is playful and inventive with each episode
featuring a flick of the director’s wrist: a wedding shown entirely in silhouette,
an overhead shot of a group of police officers suddenly emerging and circling
around a wanted man and a breathless chase across a broken wooden bridge with
four men holding hands to hold it together – a sequence that lasts for half an
episode and could easily have come from a much later era.
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| The Human Bridge |
Volkoff and Mozzhukhin never tire of their story and
across the years it was made – 1921-23 – and the decades covered by the story,
they maintain integrity and tension: they never repeat themselves and fit in
stories within each episode which add extra weight and flavour. It’s a rich
experience and you feel exactly like you’ve just read a good book.
Jules Mary was known for writing around miscarriages of
justice and this story is no different and, whilst I usually hate stories about
innocents proved guilty, you have to see this one through to make sure that
justice, if at all possible, is done. To this extent it does feel very “modern”
HBO or Netflix with victory not easily won and with a magnetic star every bit
as capable as John Hamm or Kevin Spacey with a “European” sensibility quite
unlike Hollywood at the time – Mozzhukhin looks at the camera with worrying
intensity and is matched by the malevolent complexity of the remarkable Charles Vanel who would enjoy
a 77 year career including Clouzot’s Wages
of Fear and Hitchcock’s To Catch a
Thief.
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| Charles Vanel |
Ivan Mozzhukhin (as Ivan Mosjoukine) plays Julien
Villandrit the inheritor of a large mill who lives in a large country mansion
in neighbouring grounds. When first encountered he is an excited youth,
sprinting in shirt-sleeves to propose to the daughter of his neighbours, Régine
de Bettigny (Hélène Darly). He’s so nervous he could burst and behaves with
gauche uncertainty as he tries to build up the courage to pop the question to
Régine’s parents.
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| The Mill and the House |
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| Hélène Darly and Ivan Mozzhukhin |
And so it begins, as Hell has no fury like an
industrialist scorned, and hatred brews that will shape the lives of this
unequal triangle for ever.
A retired banker, Marjory (played by Bartkevitch) is a
gentle giant who seems exceptionally fond of Régine but also her mother (Nina
Raievska) gently embracing her hand as her ailing husband sleeps outside their
opulent “cottage”. Then there’s the woodcutter Rudeberg (Nicolas Koline) a
man of no fixed moustache and a keen amateur photographer…he is a camera and
the camera rarely lies… although sometimes it withholds what it knows…
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| Nicolas Koline |
We move forward to Julien and Régine’s happy marriage which
is shown in a stunning sequence of silhouetted tableaux – it’s the type of
device that sets silent hearts all a flutter and had me calling the rest of the
family in to re-watch it. It’s a remarkable play – like shadow puppets but with
each actor clearly discernible and in character: Julien and Régine tender and
Corradin, thwarted, sneaking down stairs; making plans.
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| Corradin schemes |
The pieces are in place but it will take a full seven
years before the drama will really begin… this is a “long firm” of a story: payback will take all but every one
of the serial’s 400 minutes. Moving on… the young couple now have a precocious
daughter, Christiane (Simone Genevois) – their family complete. Already turning
slightly grey with the agony of disappointment, Corradin smirks when Julien
struggles with the Mill’s financial difficulties and is determined that he must
not only succeed, his friend must fail… totally.
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| Julien confronts Marjory |
He focuses attention on the kindly Marjory who, in
addition to secretly bailing out the mill –
repeatedly paying their outstanding bills – is also inordinately fond of
Régine: really, really fond. Julien’s not made of stone and he soon begins to
doubt the old man at first banning him from their house after one generosity to
many and then violently confronting him. But, as Julien storms homeward, the
old banker follows and, collapsing from the effort, reveals the truth: he is
Régine’s father but this must never be revealed.
Julien runs for help but whilst he’s away, another
assailant appears and is caught on camera by the shocked Rudeberg who snaps the
old man’s final moments; its grim struggle mirrored in his lens.
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| Rudeberg's lens sees all |
By the time Julien returns with help the picture he has
described is far from what is found: it’s murder and he is very much in the
frame…
Thus begins Julien’s epic struggle to prove his innocence
and, after he is incarcerated, to get free to rescue his family and to bring
the murderer and his traitorous friend to justice. Over the course of the
series he adopts many disguises: itinerant, clown, foreign legionnaire – they
all serve in the war – and disabled veteran who works for the Mill
unrecognised.
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| It's an epic |
Christiane grows up (to become Francine Mussey – whose
open, pretty face impressed my son no end…) and never forgets her father –
meeting him once when she is seven and then again after the war when she begins
to help him. She form a life-long attachment for Pascal (Vladimir Strizhevsky),
Rudeberg’s son which is bitter-sweet as his father has used his photographs of
the murder to not only blackmail Corradin into supporting the boy but has, as a
result, condemned her father to his half-life in prison and then on the run…
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| Francine Mussey |
It’s a complex tale that unfolds at novel pace… and
watching it almost all at once is not the way to fully appreciate it – filming
took two years for various reasons, and audiences would have agonising waits
between each episode: a huge dramatic tension guaranteeing their interest. More
like old analogue TV and not digital-on-demand.
The actors are all superb, Varnel treading an expert line
between friend and foe and Hélène Darly enduring years of faint hope and almost
certain degradation. Nicolas Koline epitomises their shared skill of character
consistency and the film’s efforts to show the moral frailty in extremes as he
does the right thing by his son but is largely to blame for the whole long
mess.
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| Hélène Darly |
And Ivan… Ivan is simply magnificent; one of the very
best performers of the era here allowed to go the full Alec Guiness/Lon Chaney
in a succession of disguises whilst all the time his charcter gets older, worn
down by war and defeat… yet still with hope and the unqualified, unwavering
love of his wife and daughter.
The set is available direct from Flicker Alley or Amazon
and comes with an energetic new score from Neil Brand: a musical marathon which
retains common themes and under-pins events in perfect sympathy – it’s full of
winning lines and carries a steadfast charm that is very much the story of
Julien and Régine’s love and hope.
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| Ivan of many faces |
Also included is a slideshow of rare production stills and
a 12-page booklet featuring extensive notes about the serial’s cast and crew
compiled by Lenny Borger and David Robinson.
It’s essential for all fans of Monsieur Mosjoukine and
inventive European silent cinema.
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