Simone Simon – Movie Musings

Ophüls masterful film is a cheeky end-of-pier comedy in smart clothes and subtle musing on filmmaking

Director: Max Ophüls

Cast: Anton Walbrook (Master of Ceremonies), Simone Signoret (Léocadie, the Prostitute), Serge Reggiani (Franz, the Soldier), Simone Simon (Marie, the Chambermaid), Daniel Gélin (Alfred, the Young Man), Danielle Darrieux (Emma Breitkopf, the Married Woman), Fernand Gravey (Charles Breitkopf, the Husband), Odette Joyeux (Anna, the Young Woman), Jean-Louis Barrault (Robert Kuhlenkampf, the Poet), Isa Miranda (Charlotte, the Actress), Gérard Philipe (the Count)

La Ronde is the sort of film many would describe as elegant and sophisticated, with its Edwardian Viennese setting, gorgeously expansive costumes and luxuriant sets. Which is perhaps part of Max Ophüls’ joke: because, in many ways, La Ronde is a sublimely naughty end-of-the-pier show where a suave Master of Ceremies (a gloriously arch Anton Walbrook, standing in for Ophüls himself), manipulates events and people to present a chain of sexual encounters that eventually loop back round through the partners to the prostitute (Simeone Signoret) who started it all. Only of course she didn’t start it, since Walbrook’s MC instructed her exactly which soldier she was to invite for a romantic knee-trembler. La Ronde is a sex comedy of manners – but it’s also an intriguing commentary on the act of film-making.

Walbrook’s MC is essentially the film’s director. He all but tells us this, as Ophüls camera (in one of the director’s signature long, roving camera moves) tracks him walking in evening garb in front of what looks suspiciously like a painted backdrop… and then is immediately revealed to indeed be one as Walbrook guides us past a film camera onto another set, changes his clothes and begins handing out instruction to actors. Over the course of the film, Walbrook will guide characters between sets (through a blatant back-stage area), take on a series of small roles to directly intercede in the action and even snip out the film of La Ronde’s most smutty part. He’ll even cue the sun to rise. Walbrook’s archly artificial performance is crammed with assurance, charm and a supremely entertaining streak of naughtiness: for what is a film director but a sort of enthusiastic child who enjoys playing out his stories for us.

It makes sense that La Ronde takes place in a curiously artificial world, that often seems to be only populated by whichever pair of lovers Walbrook happens to have introduced. Its design echoes the circular narrative of the piece. Ophüls camera frequently moves through circular tracking shots, while the frame is stuffed with circles. From the merry-go-round the MC rides on, circles are everywhere: courtyards and rooms are circular, stair-cases and walkways roll round on themselves, characters are framed through chandeliers or circular gaps in ormolu clocks. The set seems to loop around as much as the story does, characters being forced into rotation, as if they were constantly riding the merry-go-round (which indeed we see, at one point, kitted out with a whole dinner service) not in control of their own fate but driven forward by endless momentum.

It’s an endless momentum that crashes only once, the MC’s roundabout breaking down when a young lover suffers from a bout of impotence. It’s telling that, during this sequence, we get the closest we get to an adult conversation between two lovers, Daniel Gélin’s eager-to-please young man and the relaxed worldliness of Danielle Darrieux’s married woman. Just as it’s telling that the only encounter not punctuated by sex, but instead by an earnest conversation that there are more important things in a marriage than the buzz of passion, is between Darrieux and Fernand Gravey’s fusty but strangely vulnerable Husband. Aside from that, these encounters have a constant frission of desire beneath them, only rarely punctuated by more complex emotions.

In fact, there is something very stereotypically French about a film that essentially says a constant parade of sexual encounters between willing partners is perfectly harmless, so long as eyes are open and honesty prevails. It’s also striking how, from encounter-to-encounter, characters switch from seduced to seducer. Simone Simon’s Chambermaid goes from the arms of Serge Reggiani’s enthusiastic soldier (whose interest in her declines almost immediately after the deed), to shamelessly provoking the lust of Gélin’s young man who then immediately, enthusiastically, courts Darrieux. Odette Joyeux coquettishly plays along with Gravey’s extra-marital tumble and then finds herself swept up with Barrault’s poet who is putty in the hands of Miranda’s actress.

It all eventually loops us back round to Simone Signoret’s prostitute: and if there is anything in La Ronde about the cost of love, it seems fitting it should be connected to the loneliness of the only person to whom this is a professional obligation rather than a choice. Signoret makes the woman surprisingly melancholy and regretful, more desperate perhaps than anyone else for a taste of genuine connection: be it from Reggiani’s soldier (to whom she offers a free romantic encounter, which he only accepts so long as it doesn’t involve a ten minute walk to her apartment) or later from Philipe’s count, where she seems not even surprised that he awakens claiming to not remember a thing about the night before. La Ronde bookends a frequently light, sexy, cheeky film with its most tragic character (another sign of Signoret’s skill at pained neglect).

Aside from this, it’s a surprisingly light, playful and cheeky confection – one which relies on its impact from the masterfully graceful filming it receives from Ophüls, at the top of his game here. No point is made too forcefully, every scene smoothly but relentlessly builds towards a comic highlight, each shot is framed to perfection, from the gliding tracking shots to the Dutch angles and circulatory framing. This is a director’s film like few others: so, its immensely fitting it should, with Walbrook’s character, effectively make the director the key character, delightedly telling us every part of his design, guiding our eyes where to look and manipulating and positioning the other characters so they add to our enjoyment. There are few films quite like La Ronde in that all this is done with an astonishing lightness of touch. Nothing here is to be taken too seriously, or to be hammered home too hard. Instead, it’s a whimsical naughty story intended to leave you with a grin on your face when you recount it to friends.

The Devil sure knows how to tempt a man in this beautifully filmed morality tale

Director: William Dieterle

Cast: Walter Huston (Mr Scratch), Edward Arnold (Daniel Webster), James Craig (Jabez Stone), Anne Shirley (Mary Stone), Jane Darwell (Ma Stone), Simone Simon (Belle), Gene Lockhart (Squire Slossum), John Qualen (Miser Stevens), HB Warner (Judge Hawthorne)

Sometimes life can be a real struggle. With debts, failed crops and animals getting sick, what’s a guy to do? That’s the problem New Hampshire farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) has in 1840. What he wouldn’t give to find a bundle of buried gold that could solve all his problems. Fortunately, charming old rogue Mr Scratch (Walter Huston) knows exactly where to find one – all he wants in return is for Jabez to sign away his soul seven years from now (signed in blood of course). Jabez gets fortune, prestige, the son he always wanted – but when ‘Mr Scratch’ comes to collect, can Jabez’s friend, famed orator, lawyer and congressmen Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold) save his soul?

All That Money Can Buy is a richly atmospheric piece of film-making from William Dieterle, adapted from Stephen Vincent Benet’s short story and full of gorgeously filmed light-and-shadow with a haunting score by Bernard Herrmann. (The story was originally titled The Devil and Daniel Webster, also the film’s original title before RKO changed it to avoid confusion with their more successful Jean Arthur comedy The Devil and Miss Jones.) It’s a neat morality tale, full of dark delight at the devilish ingenuity of Mr Scratch, with lots of dark enjoyment at seeing a weak-but-decent man corrupted into being exactly the type of greedy, cheating cad to whom he was deeply in debt to from the beginning.

It’s nominally about James Craig’s Jabez Stone, but Jabez is a shallow, easily manipulated passenger in his own life, pushed and pulled towards and away from sin depending on who he’s talking to. Stone’s fall is swift: moments after meeting Scratch, he’s digging hungrily into a meal while his wife and mother say grace, hugging his newfound bag of gold. As his wealth goes, he drifts from his pure wife (Anne Shirley, effective in a dull part) becoming easy prey for demonic (literally) temptress Belle (a wonderfully seductive Simone Simon). By the time the seven years are up, he’s skipping church for illicit card games and crushing the farms of his neighbours to fund his dreamhouse-on-a-hill.

Stone is really the Macguffin here. The real focus is the big-name rivals: The Devil and Daniel Webster. It’s implied these two have fought a long-running battle for years: our introduction to Webster sees him scribbling literally in the shadow of Mr Scratch, who whispers to him tempting offers of high office. Later Webster is unflustered when Scratch suddenly appears to place a coat on his shoulders, treating him as familiar rival. You could argue Scratch is only prowling the streets of New Hampshire because he’s looking for a way to nail the soul of his real target, Daniel Webster.

As Mr Scratch, the film has a delightful (Oscar-nominated) performance from Walter Huston. With his scruffy clothes and twirling his cane, Scratch pops up everywhere with Huston’s devilish smile. It’s a masterclass in insinuating, playful malevolence, with Huston playing this larger-than-life character in a surprisingly low-key way that nevertheless sees him overflowing with delight at his own wickedness. Huston has the trick of making Scratch sound like someone trying to sound sincere, while never leaving us in doubt that everything he says is a trap or lie, only showing his arrogance and cruelty when victory is in his grasp. It’s a fabulous performance, charismatic and wicked.

Edward Arnold makes Daniel Webster both a grand man of principle and a consummate politician, proud of his reputation and all the more open to temptation for it. He also has the absolute assurance of a man used to getting his own way, and the arrogance of seeing himself as an equal to the Devil rather than a target. These two form the ends of a push-me-pull-me rivalry.

The rivalry culminates in its famous ‘courtroom’ scene, as Webster – a little the worse for drink –argues for Jabez’s soul in front of a ghostly court of American sinners from the bowels of hell (lead among them Benedict Arnold). Its shot in atmospheric smoke, with the double exposure creating a ghostly effect for jury and judge. It’s another excellent touch in a film full of inventive use of effects and camerawork, Dieterle at the height of his German influences. The artificial New Hampshire scenery is shot with a sun-kissed beauty that bears Murnau’s mark. Striking lighting and smoke-play abounds in Joseph H August’s camerawork, not least Belle’s introduction backlit with an extraordinarily bright fire. Early scenes of Stone’s misfortune interrupted by a brief frames of a photo-negative Scratch laughing, quite the chillingly surrealist effect.

Politically, All That Money Can Buy backs away from any overt criticism of Webster’s support for the Missouri Compromise (this key piece of slavery protection legislation is so key to Webster’s view of American strength he’s even named a horse after it). But it’s quite brave for 1941 in allowing the Devil legitimate criticism of America’s ‘original sins’ saying he was there driving on the seizing of the land from the Native Americans and up on deck on the first slave ship from the Congo. (Especially as Webster can’t defend these actions). It’s also interesting that the film praises collectivism for the farmers over rugged individualism, a conclusion it’s hard to imagine being praised a few years later.

All That Money Can Buy is also filled with impressive practical effects, not least Scatch’s impossible catching of an axe thrown towards him, bursting it into frame. Both Scratch and Bell reduce papers to flaming ashes with a flick of the wrist. Horribly woozy soft-focus camera work accompanies Jabez’s nightmare visions of the damned. It’s tightly and skilfully edited, superbly paced, with montages used effectively for transitions (a field of corn growing is particularly striking) and wildly unnerving sequences, like Scratch’s fast-paced barn-dance with its whirligig of movement and repeated shots. It’s all brilliantly scored by Herrmann, from the pastoral beats of New Hampshire to the discordant sounds (some created from telephone wires) that accompany Scratch.

All That Money Can Buy concludes with a stand-out speech from Webster that perhaps settles matters a little too easily – and brushes away any of the film’s mild criticism of America’s past with a relentlessly upbeat patriotic message. But the journey there – and the performances from a superb Huston and excellent Arnold – is masterfully assembled by a crack production team working under a director at the height of his powers. A flop at the time, few films deserve rediscovery more.