The Spies

The head doctor of a failing sanatorium accepts a million francs from a mysterious government agent to harbour a new fake patient. This new inmate is said to be an inventor of a new devastating nuclear device, as a consequence, a swarm of international spies are drawn to the hospital.

Les Espions is a film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot who was tagged as the French Hitchcock before that term was applied later to Claude Chabrol. He rose to prominence with films such as the suspense classic Les Diaboliques (1955). Les Espions is a much less well-known film, in fairness this is probably partially as a result of it being a less successful end product. It has a much more ambiguous tone to it, with it starting out for the most part as a black comedy, which by the end turns deadly serious. It's an unusual combination and one which I'm not sure entirely works, with the sillier story elements working against the more serious undertones. I actually thought the ending was very good and the darker aspects more successful but I felt they were lessened a little by the more light-hearted comic tone that made up much of the earlier part of the film, which was a sort of spies vs. spies scenario with the hapless doctor in the middle constantly wondering who can be trusted? I think this is one of those movies which would be improved on a re-watch, given that once you know what it isn't as much as what it is, I expect it will be much easier to get into its rhythm and get on board with its unusual tone. On first viewing I found this to be somewhat uneven, yet aspects of it definitely left me intrigued. Even if the whole doesn't fit together perfectly, this is still certainly a film with a bit of originality.

Following the commercial failure of 'Mystere Picasso', director Henri-Georges Clouzot turned to a cold war thriller by Czech writer Egon Hoskovsky. I have not read the novel so cannot judge just how loose an adaptation it is. According to Stanislas Steeman with whom he worked twice, Clouzot ''would build something having demolished any resemblance to the original.''

This is not great Clouzot to be sure but still has touches of a master film-maker with his grasp of 'light' and pacing. There is of course the blacker-than-black humour and the usual collection of colourful but morally vacuous characters played here by some of the best in the business.

Into Dr. Malic's delapidated psychiatric clinic come Peter Ustinov as Kaminsky and Sam Jaffe as Cooper, both of them spies posing as patients and Martita Hunt, another spy, posing as a replacement nurse. There are two genuine patients in residence one of whom is a morphine addict and the other a deaf-mute. Curd Jurgens turns up as Alex but he might actually be Vogel, a nuclear scientist whose dreadful new formula is the 'Macguffin' everyone is after. The real Vogel turns up towards the end in the person of the excellent 0. E. Hasse.

I am impressed with the excellent French of Sam Jaffe and Martita Hunt who are mercifully not 'dubbed'. Miss Hunt's portrayal is outrageous and utterly riveting. The performance that lingers longest is that of Clouzot's then wife Vera who is simply stunning as Lucie the deaf-mute.

One does not really know whether the changes of tone from satire to dark drama here are intentional or accidental and although they can be somewhat disorientating, this bizarre film still succeeds as a piece of entertainment.

Following the excellent 'La Verité' nothing would ever be the same for Clouzot after the sudden death of Vera in 1960 and the totally unjustified criticisms of his work from the arrogant New Ripple brigade.

It is said that a work of art reflects its creator. What that says about Henri-Georges Clouzot the man I shudder to think but let us be grateful for the films this complex individual has given us.

This is HG Clouzot's most ambitious work ,one of the most demanding and complex movie of a soon-to-be -nouvelle-vague France.Let's put it straight:although modern to a fault,"les espions" has nothing to do with the nouvelle vague:no ""free" camera here",a bunch of "old actors", a very elaborate screenplay.The problem is that it has nothing to do with the "old guard" either.The "story" flouts conventions,and HGC does not give a damn if his audience cannot catch up with it.The film was bound to be a commercial failure,particularly with an audience who got enthusiastic over "le salaire de la peur'(wages of fear) and "les diaboliques" .

The starting point may recall "the diaboliques": in this latter work,a seedy boarding-school;in "les espions" ,a doctor short of the readies,whose clinic is sinking.So why not gladly agreeing a mysterious man's proposal?One million francs,if he puts "them" up?Who are "they"?That's how the doctor's(Gerard Sety) nightmare begins.He is caught up in the system,and a lot of threatening characters (played by topnotch international actors:Curd Jurgens,Martita Hunt,Sam Jaffe)begin to show up:every time he thinks he begins to understand,the truth eludes him-Gérard Séty 's character predates Laurence Harvey's in "the Mandchourian candidate" and even Michael Douglas's in "the game".HGC watched the spies as if they were microbes under a microscope.It's a rather unpleasant view. Vera Clouzot-the unforgettable heroine of "les diaboliques" - appears in the role of a deaf and dumb neurotic woman(She was to die of an heart attack three years later).

Clouzot 's health began to deteriorate during the sixties.After "les espions" he was to make only two works "la vérité"(the truth) one of Brigitte Bardot's best parts and "la prisonnière".He made only 11 movies in all,which may not seem much,but most of them are among the best works French cinema has produced.

In common, I would guess, with anyone who had seen and admired the earlier work of Clouzot beginning with Le Corbeau and culminating in Les Diaboliques, I approached this with taste buds primed for major salivation only to be disappointed. This has to be a one-off, a thriller sans thrills. At times it resembles one of those creaky British B-pictures of the thirties and forties so that you almost expect Wilfrid Lawson to emerge out of a pea-souper and stare meaningfully at Kynaston Reeves. For reasons best known to himself Clouzot even finds work for Paul Carpenter, surely the most inept and wooden actor on either side of the Channel, matched only by Laurence Harvey and Alan Lake. Having bought it on DVD I shall, I suppose, watch it again on the off chance that there really is something I'm missing besides a few brain cells shed in the time it took to unspool.

A somewhat over-plotted spy thriller by the French master of suspense Henri-Georges Clouzot, that features spies from different countries converging on a psychiatric clinic, run by doctor Malik (Gerard Sety), who is offered a substantial sum of money to shelter a new patient that happens to be an atomic scientist. Soon, the hospital beds are filled with international spies all desperate after the information the patient holds.

Just about everything in this espionage tale is open to question, with its wildly imaginative insinuations of nuclear devices, Amerian and Soviet secret agents and crackpot taxi drivers, doctors and patients. This film certainly has its moments, but is a little uneven and anyone familiar with Clouzot's work, knows this one is not strictly for laughs. It's all meticulously scripted, but is just a taut long (137 minutes) and soon becomes such an impenetrable puzzle, it's hard to keep track of the proceedings, but the film benefits from a good international cast, including Peter Ustinov (SPARTACUS, TOPKAPI, DEATH ON THE NILE), Curd Jürgens (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, THE LONGEST DAY), Sam Jaffe (BEN HUR) and Vera Clouzot (LES DIABOLIQUES).

Not without interest, but ultimately, the elements just don't glue together that well, with rather unsatisfactory results.

Camera Obscura --- 6/10