Two Men in Manhattan

At the UN today, the French representative didn't show though few made much notice of it. However, a French reporter is given the assignment to look for the guy and see why he disappeared. To help, he gets the help of a super-sleazy photographer, Pierre, and the pair bounce about New York following leads. They think this well respected man might have a mistress--and several photos of him with ladies might help them locate the guy.

Eventually they locate the man and then comes an important decision- -what to do with this information. The photographer, naturally, wants to make the most of it and spread sensationalistic photos everywhere. The other guy is decent and tries to get his new partner to do the right thing.

I love the films of Jean-Pierre Melville--at least up until this one. It's not a terrible film but nothing like the great film noir features Melville made (mostly in the 60s and 70s). But it did have a homemade feel--cheap and definitely more French New Wave than his usual more polished work. Lots of cheap stock footage of New York was used and so many of the English-speaking actors sounded anything but like New Yorkers. French audiences probably wouldn't have recognized this, but to an American the accents often don't fit or sometimes sound like foreigners TRYING to sound American...and failing. Mildly interesting and clearly the last portion is by far the most interesting. Plus, being a French film it has some nudity, lesbianism and other plot elements you just wouldn't have found in an American film of the time.

This is a road movie. We travel with two men through New York's nightlife in one night (hence the title of the film). The stops are Broadway performers, recording studios, burlesque dancers, brothels, iconic places such as Time Square, the UN building, Rockefeller Center, etc. and along the way we breathe the atmosphere, a jazz trumpet, the neon lights, hot dogs, shadows and dark alleys. The pretext for this ride (in this case the "plot": an investigation of a UN delegate disappearance and some dilemmas of yellow journalism) is just a pretext, as in any good journey. Recommended for road movie fans, New Wave connoisseurs, New Yorkers, jazz lovers, nightlife owls and noir-ish buffs.

Melville is clearly enjoying himself in this picture. As director, there is a virtuosic flourish to many of the extended shots and the night-time cinematography. As actor, the constant smirk on his character's face is surely that of Melville himself, playing out his personal fantasy as a film noir character in his favourite city.

When the story arrives, it's revealed to be an ethical dilemma: our two principals (Melville as an Agence France Presse journalist and Pierre Grasset as his photographer buddy) discover a French diplomat and ex-Resistance hero dead of a heart attack in an actress's apartment. Do they report the truth, cover it up to preserve the guy's reputation or sensationalise it even more to make a fortune from the exclusive?

Melville was by no means a great actor, but his baleful eyes, bland smile and spiffy bow tie in this film give him a kind of sleazy charm that brings to mind Peter Lorre. His character's name (Moreau) is a pun on "moraux", which means moral, and indeed he is intended to be the moral centre of the film. There are moments, though, when he seems genuinely sinister: when he peeps on a bare-breasted dancer in her dressing room (the scene was censored in the UK), and when he looms threateningly over another girl who has just attempted suicide.

"Deux hommes..." is the most New Wave of all Melville's films. The raw, documentary-style shots, the improvised feel to some of the scenes (Melville makes frequent mistakes when speaking English), the use of real locations and untrained actors (including Melville himself), were jarring to audiences and critics at the time. In the light of Godard and Truffaut we can now better appreciate the type of film-making that Melville helped to inaugurate. Nevertheless, Melville regarded "Deux hommes..." as a failed experiment, returning in his subsequent films to a more classical approach.

Melville keeps the story going pretty well, but this is a weak film compared to his best efforts. Shot partly on location in New York, and also in a Paris studio, with many of the supporting players having had to learn their parts phonetically (Monique Hennessy is particularly clumsy with her lines), this is a noir that shows its low budget and lack of inspiration in places. The attempt to find the missing diplomat ends in a woman's apartment. We get a five minute speech from the two reporters's boss about how great Fevre-Berthier was, it's a dull scene.

If you are looking for a noir with verve and great music, why not try Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, with REAL actors and Miles Davis's great score.

French director Jean-Pierre Melville is known for directing several classic films such as Bob le flambeur (1956) and Le samouraï (1967), but he also did some acting over the course of his career. However, his only starring role was in his own 1959 crime film Two Men in Manhattan, where he plays a journalist named Moreau who is assigned to find out why a French diplomat named Fèvre-Berthier was absent from a United Nations council meeting. With his photographer friend Delmas (Pierre Grasset), Moreau suspects a female lover might be involved and follows clues from woman to woman in the night of New York City, a place that never sleeps. There also seems to be a car following Moreau and Delmas...

Said to be a combination of American film noir and the budding French New Wave movement, Two Men in Manhattan very neatly utilizes the good sides of both styles. The urban street views and skyscrapers look excellent in the glow of the bright ad signs on store marquees and the dark, stark lighting set up for interior scenes is a joy to the eye too. The laid-back jazz soundtrack is highly enjoyable, creating a mood softer than in hard boiled detective noirs, even though the seedy locations would fit in such flicks seamlessly as well.

A lot of the film's charm lies on the shoulders of the two protagonists, who suit their roles splendidly. Melville's sad-looking appearance matches his character's melancholic but righteous attitude perfectly, while Grasset makes a great pairing for him as the greedy and amoral Delmas, prone to drinking and sleeping around. Ultimately their opposing approaches to the ethics of journalism are what create one of the main themes of the film; namely, examining the responsibility of the press when publishing stories of delicate nature. Besides the lead duo, the supporting actors do a good job too, from a suicidal stage actress Judith Nelson (Ginger Hall) to a jaded cabaret dancer Bessie Reed (Michèlle Bailly) and a jazz singer Virginia Graham (Glenda Leigh) who we get to see recording a haunting song in a studio.

All in all, when a film successfully combines a totally smooth and cool atmosphere with suspense and humour like Two Men in Manhattan does, it just cannot be anything but highly enjoyable. The movie is simply thoroughly entertaining, but since the technical elements are also very skilfully created, there is no reason to skip this one if you're even remotely interested in film noir and French cinema.