SUNDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 16, 2014SALUTE TO JULIEN DUVIVIER

CHAIR DE POULE / HIGHWAY PICKUP  5:30, 9:30

Legendary director Duvivier (PÉPÉ LE MOKO, LE FIN DU JOUR, PANIQUE) was nearing the end of his illustrious career, but he saved one of the best for last in CHAIR DE POULE, in which the essence of noir's hard-boiled school is distilled in a taut tale of fate, lust and enveloping entrapment. Robert Hossein is at his astringent best as a thief on the lam who jumps from frying pan into the fire when he holes up at a highway truck stop where he's quickly embroiled in the grasping, malevolent schemes of a hard-bitten, voluptuous vixen (Catherine Rouvel) who will literally stop at nothing to get what she wants! With Jean Sorel, and Jacques Bertand. With photography from Léonce-Henri Burel, longtime right-hand man of Robert Bresson. Dir. Julien Duvivier (1963, 107 min.).

VOICI LES TEMPS DES ASSASSINS / DEADLIER THAN THE MALE  7:30

While the other French femmes fatales are "hot," none of them approach the coiled ferocity of Danièle Delorme in DEADLIER THAN THE MALE. It's possible that no one in the history of cinema is as driven to a life of ruthless scheming by the bitter recollection of her hardscrabble youth—even Delorme herself, when interviewed, shrank from the implications within the character. American noir aficionados would do well to recall ANGEL FACE (1952) and think of Delorme's work here as "Jean Simmons on steroids."

Matching her step-for-step are Jean Gabin, the target of her desperate, malevolent scheming; Germain Kerjean as his controlling, cold-hearted mother; Gerard Blain as his clueless surrogate son; and Luciene Bogart as Delorme's decay-ridden, drug-addicted mother. Featuring superb camerawork by Armand Thiraud (Clouzot's longtime right-hand man), DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is arguably the definitive French film noir. Dir. Julien Duvivier (1956, 107 min.)

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