Although his reputation is not as known as theirs , Henry Decoin was ,along Julien Duvivier and Henri- Georges Clouzot ,one of the most influential forces in the film noir field:"les inconnus dans la maison" ,"le bienfaiteur" "l'homme de Londres" "non coupable" "les amants du pont-saint-jean", "les amoureux sont seuls au monde " "la vérité sur bébé donge" are all unqualified musts for anyone interested in the old French thriller.
"La fille du diable" bears a distant resemblance to earlier "le bienfaiteur" ,but ,in my book , it surpasses the former work.
Fernand Ledoux 's and Pierre Fresnay's cat and mouse play is at once funny and tragic ;good guy and baddie nohow : because he knows that Saget is a gangster who did not make his fortune in America ,the doctor exerts a "moral" blackmail on him : the way he forces him to pay the invoice for the church bell, the radiotherapy center and the stadium (which will prevent the youth from going hoodlums) is absolutely stunning ,and both actors are at the top of their game ; the baffled gangster tries to strike back ,discovering that two women were some kind of guinea-pigs and that his purpose is more to be inducted in the Academy of Medecine than to help his fellow men .
In the village where the action takes place, hypocrisy , scheming and false generosity reign ; the former gangster has a grown up kid side to him, and his auntie( excellent Therese Dorny) still treats him like a child ; his fortune being used to help the public good, he's relegated to sell fishing rods in her store .
Gangster Saget has a chip on his shoulder ,he doesn't like to be liked and he likes nobody ;he will meet his female counterpart in the shape of an outcast girl ,Isabelle,whose father hung himself,after being (perhaps unfairly) accused of embezzlement .With a rebellious teenager in tow, armed up with a slingshot ,they shoot at everything on this village that denies them a place .Isabelle reigns over a bunch of underdogs ,fascinated by her noir personality, but who let her down as soon as she asks them to spoil the chatelaine's fete .An extremely ambiguous character ,she longs for tenderness in her dark room :because love and affection elude her ,she opts for evil and a bizarre relationship grows between the former gangster and a girl who stays in front of the church , feeling hate for those well-meaning people .Some kind of priestess of evil ,in love with a man she thinks she does not know ,but who represents rebellion against a rotten society.
Although she comes last in the cast and credits ,Andrée Clément almost stole the show from her highly talented male partners ;hadn't she died from TB (appalling coincidence ,she suffers from this disease in the film) ,and had she been given more important parts ,she could have become part of the elite of French actresses,along with Arletty ,Simone Signoret, Danielle Darrieux, Michele Morgan, Micheline Presles, Madeleine Robinson,et al.
Decoin's directing is faultless ; the first scenes are almost abstract ,and the man,driving at a dizzying speed on the road , lays the cards on the table: it will be a story of sound and fury ,although often muffled .The short panoramic of the welcome village will not delude the viewer for long ;later on, oblique shots of the streets and church will emphasize a rotten microcosm .
