La maison du mystère

When you consider that this seven hour episode film has been lost for ` eighty years, you realize how sloppy the business of keeping the best movie material circulating really is.

A great outing for Ivan Mosjoukine who managed to become the mega heart throb star of Tsarist Russia and, a decade later, European film, this one has him as part Ulysses, part Othello, battling broad shouldered Charles Vanel (youngest I've ever seen him) - jail breaking by stealing a train, punching it out on the top of a mountain, being a master of disguises and goodness knows what else in the hours missing represented by inset titles, in the feature version .

The star is riveting as he always was. The support are great. The production values superior and the direction imaginative. This is a film which would delight audiences who snooze through THE LAST LAUGH or BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN and any scheme of values that gives those priority over it is suspect.

Fortunately MAISON DU MYSTERE survives in the superior print restored by Rene Lichtig for Langlois' French Film Museum. The sad part is that so many people who would have loved this have never seen it and probably never will.