Le Monte-Charge / Paris Pick-Up (1962)
Paris Pick-Up / Le Monte-Charge (1962)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 5.6Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English (custom)
01:30:00 | Italy, France | Drama
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | PAL | 5.6Gb
Audio: French AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subtitles: English (custom)
01:30:00 | Italy, France | Drama
Released from prison one Christmas evening, Robert Herbin tries to contact his mother, only to find that she died whilst he was in jail. Alone and uncertain where to go, Robert enters a cafe where he meets a solitary woman and her young daughter. The woman, Marthe, pleases Robert and, out of kindness, he escorts her and her child back to her apartment. Marthe tells Robert that her husband is away on business but she resists his attempts to seduce her. Later, Marthe changes her mind and invites the stranger back to her apartment. On his return, Robert is surprised to find the dead body of Marthe’s husband…
Director: Marcel Bluwal
Cast: Robert Hossein, Lea Massari, Robert Dalban, Maurice Biraud, Mag-Avril, Andre Badin, Etienne Bierry, Pascale Brouillard, Claude Ferna, Paul Gay, Maurice Garrel, Georges Geret, Charles Lavialle, Robert Moor, Jeanne Perez, Julien Verdier, Andre Weber, Henri Attal, Charles Bayard, Christian Brocard, Gerard Buhr, Edouard Francomme, Yvonne Gradelet, Franck Maurice, Bernard Musson, Laure Paillette, Dominique Zardi
Le Monte-Charge / Paris Pick-Up (1962)
Le Monte-Charge / Paris Pick-Up (1962)
IMDb
On a Christmas night, all doesn't seem to be calm and bright.An ex-convict ,Robert Herbin,(Robert Hossein) meets a beautiful Italian married woman Marthe Drevet ,who has got a lot of things to hide and it's the beginning of a film noir,with a lot of suspense and unexpected twists ,unfairly ignored nowadays.
The screenwriter was adapted from a Frederic Dard 's novel,famous in France for his "San Antonio " series -not for every taste-,but who also wrote murder mysteries as compelling as these of Boileau-Narcejac (les diaboliques,Vertigo)Robert Hossein had already adapted his "toi le venin" for the screen,and it seems that he is ,much more than Marcel Bluwal,essentially a TV director,the main auteur of the film.
The action takes place in an old house ,the first floor of which is a big workshop.A dark , threatening house,where a service elevator(monte-charge)leads to the flat.Marthe takes Robert to her home for a drink;he puts a small bird he bought on the Xmas tree,and they go for a stroll in the streets;when they come back,there's a dead body in the room(the hubby) and most extraordinary thing,the bird has disappeared.And that's only the beginning!The scenes outside the house show Clouzot's and Duvivier's influence,but also Dard's misanthropy:all through the streets,on that Xmas night,there's nothing really divine:except from the very beginning,when a gendarme buys a plane for his child,all we see is people arguing or fighting.And it's during the midnight mass,when a singer breaks into "minuit chretiens" (o holy night),that the two heroes meet a despicable bourgeois(Maurice Biraud) puffed up with smugness and vulgarity.
A lot of surprises await the audience and I wonder why they've never thought of a remake:the screenplay is strong enough to stand the test of time.The performances (Hossein,Biraud and Lea Massari) are first-rate.
~ dbdumonteil
Le Monte-Charge / Paris Pick-Up (1962)
Le Monte-Charge / Paris Pick-Up (1962)
