Marie-Octobre

Undoubtedly another great Duvivier's picture, this time touching in a neuralgic matter, due on occupied France many cooperating with the Germans invaders, this is the main point, after a fifteen years a hearsay came to Marie-Octobre's ears and his slavish admirer Léon Blanchet (Robert Dalban), thus they decided gathered all member of the French resistance at those time to find out the real traitor and thief, the meeting shall be in the same place where everything happened, that ends up with the Gestapo breaking out the meeting, also killing his leader, further the traitor also stolen three millions francs, they are eleven, a pressman, a priest, a tax collector, industrialist, a butcher, an attorney, a locksmith, a doctor, among others and the still young Lino Ventura as Carlo Bernardi as night club's owner, they faces each other, many things come up, suspicions on the air, in searching for the truth they reconstituting the final scene when his leader was killed, robust and valuable effort, displaying the human nature even on the worst wartime backdrop, Duvivier walks in a stony ground!!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5

Based on a novel by Jacques Robert, Julien Duvivier, Henri Jeanson and the author himself, wrote an original script for this film, which actually looks more like a play, as everything happens in the space of a few hours, and almost always in the same room.

The plot, despite focusing on the discovery of a traitor, among the group of old comrades in arms, of the resistance, almost seems like a long scene from Agatha Christie, in which Hercule Poirot unfolds hypothesis after hypothesis, until concluding with the discovery of the murderer.

The main attraction of the film is that it allows us to read between the lines of the police plot, to show a France that is both resistant and collaborative. They are all suspects because, despite being heroes of the resistance, they all collaborated, more or less, with the German invader and the Vichy government. And everyone accuses each other of these civic sins.

It is France settling accounts with history and clearing its guilty conscience of defeat and collaborationism, during the Nazi occupation.

In this sense, it is a provocative work, for its time. But subtly reading.

However, in general, it looks almost like a banal Cluedo game, despite a cast full of stars.

This is one the best movies directed by Julien Duvivier with a perfect french casting : lino ventura, bernard blier, serge reggiani, robert dalban, etc... The script is very good, the acting just perfect and the atmosphere is really great. Well, a perfect french movie don't miss it !

Resistance fighter Marie-Octobre (it's her former code name) gathers her mates after the war.There's a traitor among them and they've got to discover him and do away with him.The audience is induced to suspect one by one all the "guests",à la Agatha Christie.The film forgets the historical background very quick to focus on an efficient but rather artificial suspense.

The good cast (Danielle Darrieux,Serge reggiani,Bernard Blier,Paul Meurisse) makes up for the conventional side of this story.It' s a watchable work,but it's not representative of Julien Duvivier's greatness:he was in the last part of his brilliant career and time had begun to take its toll.But his touch is still here though.

At first sight, a policier. Or adaptation of Agatha Christie novel. Or only a war story. Or a story of revenge.

But each of this definitions works in some measure. It is a film admirable crafted and this represents one of its basic virtues. The second good point, obvious , the cast. Not the last, the atmosphere, constructed crumb by crumb.

After fifteen years , a sort of trial . The members of resistance group looking for the author of murder of one of them. Danielle Darrieux is just superb, proposing a great character in wich past love remains part of desire, cold one, of justice.

A film captivating the viewer as testimony of this special hunt of truth, in which the accusations, doubts, excuses are mixed in a large effort to cure a stain of past.