One more time,no comment comes from Perret's native country ;French people are not that much interested in their silent era.
Restored in 1993,the pictures are close to perfect ;The film was filmed on location (no,it's not Godard and co 's invention!) ,and the director takes advantage of it ,notably in the remarkable scene in which Ferdinand shoots Jean.
The screenplay ,closer to French melodrama from the nineteenth century and to contemporary Maurice Leblanc 's Arsene Lupin -the settings could be used for ,say,"l'Aiguille Creuse" -than to Souvestre and Allain's "Fantomas " ,Judex ,or "Les Vampires " which Feuillade transferred to the screen ;Perret 's murder mystery has stood the time better than his colleague 's extravaganzas .
The first part has only one major flaw;a line reads " Suzanne struggles against the raging sea": the viewer only sees little wavelets ,the boat stands in little danger of capsizing!
The second part is well ahead of its time and predates the Freudian American movies of the forties ,those of Lang,Tourneur,Hitchcock ,Siodmak ...Suzanne has lost her mind and her memory ,and doctor Williams gives her his special treatment : he films the reconstruction of the drama and shows his work to his patient :the film in the film,which holds her spellbound ,psychoanalysis ,all this takes us far from Fandor,Juve and Musidora.And in the masked ball,Perret shows his sense of mystery and a certain symbolism .
Suzanne Grandais ,Perret 's Lilian Gish ,was unfortunately killed in a car crash in 1920:she was only 27.
I do hope all these comments from abroad will help this movie to be restored to favor in France.
