CARTOUCHE: Blu-ray (Films Ariane/Filmsonor/Franco London/Embassy, 1962) Kino Lorber
Even as the New Wave pointed in directions to invigorate
and reinvent French cinema, there remained directors like Philippe de Broca and
movies like 1962’s Cartouche to suggest old habits die hard. And Cartouche
is a very old habit, indeed; a glossy swashbuckler, imbued with light comedy
and a winning score by Georges Delerues, some ill-conceived action set pieces,
and, a mostly alluring performance from ‘then’ art house fav, Jean-Paul Belmondo
as the titular rogue, a clumsy, yet taut and dashing pickpocket come man-of-the-people
in 18th century France – a nation, still dominated by the vain and
self-important aristocracy. Cartouche
is a movie that attempts – and occasionally fulfills its potential. There are, alas,
interminable bouts of unevenly paced muck and mire to wade through in this throwback,
only to prove that by 1962, such adventure yarns were best served by those faint
memories of an Errol Flynn or Stewart Granger. Belmondo’s curious ‘attractiveness’
– he exudes that intangible sort of swarthy sex appeal, partly comedic/partly
butch, despite not exactly being the most physically appealing male specimen ever
to grace the screen – is offset by one of the irrefutable beauties of his
generation – sexpot supreme, Claudia Cardinale as the aptly-named gypsy/wench, Vénus.
Belmondo and Cardinale have wonderful chemistry here,
and it goes a long way when the screenplay by de Broca, Daniel Boulanger, and, Charles
Spaak frequently unravels into tedious farce. Cartouche is just one of those movies that
starts out with so much promise, one expects great things to follow. Yet, it unfurls
as an episodic and not terribly prepossessing series of vignettes, some more
successfully carried off than others. The romantic scenes between Belmondo and
Cardinale have the most playful and genuine oomph. The action sequences are another
matter entirely. Stunt coordinator, Claude Carliez’s execution of these fall
somewhere between the standard B-serial and Saturday morning cartoon mash-up.
Our hero and his cohorts, the ‘little John’ styled, La Douceur (Jess Hahn) and
bon vivant, La Taupe (Jean Rochefort) are never in any real danger, despite
chronic threats from the officious, yet twaddling Le sergent recruteur (Noël
Roquevert), the sadomasochistic ‘aristo’ magistrate, Gaston de Ferrussac (Phillippe
Lemaire), and, inept wrangler of the impoverished classes, Malichot (Marcel
Dalio). However, without a singular and genuine menace, this triumvirate of
carousing ‘good-time’ Charlies can only be as confident or as conscientious as
propriety and Cartouche’s own code of ethics will allow.
After a bombastic main title sequence, supplied by composer,
Georges Delerues, we are introduced to Louis-Dominique Bourguignon (a.k.a. - Cartouche).
Here is a fellow with high ambitions to be the greatest lowlife in town. While
observing a public execution, Cartouche crosses paths with the Chief of Police,
Ferrussac and his buxom, yet sympathetic wife, Isabelle (Odile Versois). The pompous Ferrussac orders Dominique to bow before
him, then humiliates Dominique by causing him to lose his footing and take a
tumble against a nearby apple cart. That evening, Dominique attends Malichot,
the overseer of a motley crew of thieves who are forced to hand over most of
their ill-gotten gains amassed throughout the day. Having had quite enough of
his wrangler, Dominique makes a bad enemy of Malichot. To escape his wrath,
Dominque and his two best friends, La Taupe and La Douceur join the army. However, dying for their country is not
exactly what this trio had in mind. Hence, after a particularly hazardous
battle in which they remain the sole survivors, Dominque, La Taupe and La Douceur
elect to desert.
They run afoul of Le sergent recruteur and come in
contact with the gypsy girl, Venus being held against her will inside a local
tavern. Freeing the girl from her chains, and imprisoning her captors too, Dominique
– now, adopting the alter-ego of Cartouche – endeavors to liberate the impoverished
from Malichot’s tyranny. In short order, Cartouche and Venus become an item
and, together with the newly liberated masses, set about on a Robin-Hood-esque quest
to lighten the purses of the aristocrats by starting an ambitious crime wave.
Eventually, Ferrussac calls for Cartouche’s arrest. Malichot, having been deposed by Cartouche, now
exposes his true identity to Ferrussac. The police set a trap for Cartouche in
the countryside as he plans a romantic retreat with Venus. Momentarily taken
prisoner, Cartouche is freed by his loyalists. Alas, Venus is sacrificed in the
struggle. Cartouche places her lifeless remains in the handsome coach stolen
from his adversaries, sinking it in a nearby lake but vowing revenge for the
murder – a gallant gesture from such an unscrupulous rogue, who reasons he will
likely meet with the gallows sooner rather than later.
Thanks to François de Lamothe’s production design, Robert
Christidès’ set decoration, Rosine Delamare’s costumes and Christian Matras’
lurid cinematography in Eastmancolor and Dyaliscope (the French equivalent to
Cinemascope), Cartouche at least has the look of a handsomely mounted ‘would
be’ epic adventure. It never entirely comes off as such, and that is a pity,
because it owes its allegiance to a long line of like-minded French film fare.
But the ‘swash’ is decidedly missing from this ‘buckler’, leaving Belmondo’s
physically slight brute to repeatedly inveigle himself in some silly little
adventures that go nowhere fast. The finale here is deflating, especially since
Cartouche illustrated clear intentions never to be faithful to Venus, thereupon
making her self-sacrifice for his love a very moot point indeed. Within its
slender run time, there are virtually no moments set aside for character
development. So, what we get instead is Belmondo and Cardinale’s as screen
presences. Alas, the rest of the cast come across as stick figures with no soul
and no modus operandi other than the thumbnail sketch of sketchy intentions derived
from the screenwriters’ pens. Stock baddie. Stock love interest. Stock hero.
Stock sidekicks. It all comes off as more crudely assembled summer stock than a
highly polished and scintillating screen escapade. And thus, Cartouche remains
a disposable yarn; its cinematography - colorful, its characterizations - tragically
colorless.
Cartouche arrives on
Blu-ray states’ side via Kino Lorber in a 1080p transfer, provided by
StudioCanal. While advertised as derived from a new 4K source, it is sincerely
wanting. Overall image clarity is middling at best. While some of this may be
attributed to source materials available – also, the imperfect spherical
Dyaliscope process – the rest seems to be derived from a flawed scan with inconsistently
rendered grain, and, the occasional hint of artificial sharpening to add undue
crispness. Colors are stylized, but flesh tones never appear as anything better
than a ruddy brownish mess with certain scenes also adopting a slight jaundice cast.
Again, some of this is owed lighting techniques and Eastmancolor stock. But the
image here leans to a gaudy spate of colors. Contrast is anemic. Blacks are
deep grey and scenes shot in the stark sunlight have blown out whites. Fine
details get lost during sequences shot at night and there is minor black crush
too. The 1.0 DTS mono mix accurately captures the original sound design, minus hiss
and pop. It’s very limited, with often strident-sounding dialogue and SFX that
are of the cut and paste ilk in sound editing. We get a highly informative
audio commentary by critic/author, Simon Abrams - well-worth the price of
admission. In fact, Abrams is a wealth of knowledge here. We also get ‘Adventure
with a Capital ‘C’ – a featurette with de Broca and journalist, Thomas Morales,
plus a badly worn theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Cartouche is a
romanticized snore. While Belmondo and Cardinale are fun to watch…up to a point,
the picture falls apart much sooner than it ought. The end result is hardly
satisfying. Ditto for this Blu-ray rendering. Judge and buy accordingly.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the
best)
2.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
3
EXTRAS
2
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