With most of the family on holiday,I realised that I could catch-up on some long awaited viewings. Reading excellent comments on the title from fellow IMDber dbdumonteil,I decided to discover how much deadlier auteur Julien Duvivier could make things.

The plot:

Divorced from his wife Gabrielle for over 20 years, André Chatelin has poured his heart and soul into becoming the greatest chef in Paris,with even the President going for regular meals at Chatelin's café. Whilst clearing up,Catherine walks in. Not having seen Gabrielle's for over 20 years,Catherine reveals to Chatelin that she has recently died,and that she herself is Gabrielle's daughter. Bringing Catherine into the business, Chatelin starts finding Catherine placing romantic feelings on him. Whilst Chatelin takes everything at face value,Catherine starts cooking up a scheme that will reveal her to be deadlier than the male.

View on the film:

Opening with a crane shot sweeping up the streets of Paris, co- writer/(with Charles Dorat/Maurice Bessy and Pierre-Aristide Bréal) directing auteur Julien Duvivier & Henri-Georges Clouzot's regular cinematographer Armand Thirard pull the viewer into the dirty side streets with a glistening "evil under the flames" aura being cooked up in the kitchen between Chatelin and Catherine, which spills over in dazzling pre-French New Wave outdoor shooting,which gives Chatelin's battles for Catherine an on the spot urgency. Served in just under two hours, Duvivier grills his unique Film Noir style with a rich canvas of lingering murky shadows and transfixing tracking shots,which sway on the pessimism seeping into Chatelin's "image" of Catherine.

Giving the viewer the opportunity to taste Chatelin's Noir meals,the screenplay by Duvivier/Bessy and Bréal fully explore the relationships in brilliantly subtle gestures,via the almost- son/dad bond between Chatelin and Gérard Delacroix breaking down into Noir loners fighting in the streets,and Catherine's humble,pristine image being chipped away to unveil the heart of a Femme Fatale. Keeping her real hand out of sight,the writers smartly spend the first hour threading a bond between Catherine and Chatelin that shines with some glimpses of sincere love,which wilts away into the Noir tar that Catherine tries to keep out of Chatelin's sight.

Shimmering into Chatelin's kitchen, Danièle Delorme gives an exquisite performance as Catherine,whose Femme Fatale mind games are given an earthy veneer by Delorme that tug at the heart strings of Chatelin,and shake up the Angry Young Man tension within Gérard. Giving his exchanges with Gérard (played by a great Gérard Blain) a parental warmth,Jean Gabin gives an extraordinary performance as Chatelin. Constantly seeing the burnt embers of past romantic relationships,Gabin catches the youthful excitement that surrounds Chatelin in a new romance,but is unable to escape the Noir loner wriggling unease that Catherine has a hidden side that is about to steam up.

This Duvivier gem is the definitive proof that the FRench cinema was not moribund in the late fifties.Julien Duvivier,the master of the film noir French style ("Pepe le Moko" was a strong influence on the American film noir),outdoes himself and gives his last masterpiece ."Voici le temps des assassins " outdistances all former works ,it's really the apex of evil.

Danielle Delorme 's character is one of the most perverse you can see on a screen:she almost makes us forget Jean Simmons in "Angel Face" .This girl is perversity flesh on the bone.Is she a victim (of her education? her sad background?)Delorme told in an interview that her part was "much too much",that she probably had excuses,that she probably suffered during her childhood: terse answer by the director:"evil people are evil,period." Duvivier's world is thoroughly noir:the three old women who are featured in the movie are evil too.

Germaine Kerjean's character is even more terrifying than the false ingenue :not only she probably broke her son's marriage (Gabin) but she has also continued to dominate him.When Gabin introduces her to Catherine,she simply says with a threatening smile :"she has a chilling way about her" ;actually this reply turns the audience 's heart into ice.this old shrew is sadistic to a fault:you should see her behead her chickens in her guinguette (cafe where you dance on the banks of the Seine)!You should see her thrash her daughter-in-law,yelling,when the whip comes down :"that will knock you into shape!!" Catherine's mother(Lucienne Bogaert) is a slut,the ugliest woman you have ever met,destroyed by alcohol and drugs .She epitomizes decay.She urges her daughter to kill her husband -who was also his twenty years ago-,and the way she plans the murder,lavishly detailed ,makes your flesh creep.

And there is Gabin's housekeeper (Gabrielle Fontan),a hypocrite spinster who never found love and thus is jealous of Catherine,who is young and beautiful.she moves in the house like a snake ,always on the look-out for some gossips about Catherine,the intruder.

The action takes place in three places: 1)Gabin's restaurant in Les Halles,now a thing of the past,where the scenarists take a slap at the Americans -who are far from being gourmets- and the dogs (there's humor in this somber story).

2)Catherine's junkie mother's room ,in a seedy house near decay,where she spins her web.

3)Her mother-in-law's guinguette,turned into a living hell by the owner.

The characters move from one place to another,as an almost unbearable tension rises and takes all the characters in a bloody violent final by the misty banks of a glittering Seine.

This movie contains scenes that will leave you at the edge of your seat,even 50 years after:Kerjean,whipping with an intense pleasure;Gerard's (Gerard Blain) murder in the night down by the Seine;His dog,barking at a scared to death Catherine.Sincerely,I've seen lots and lots of FRench movies,but few (if any) come close to this one when it comes to depicting wickedness ,greed and perversity.

Once dismissed as "pre nouvelle vague trash" "voici le temps des assassins -looked upon as a masterpiece by Bertrand Tavernier,one of the masters of the contemporary French cinema - has since been restored to favor by a whole generation of viewers (its IMDb rating is currently 7,6!Thanks to the users!)and critics (Jacques Lourcelles notably).

Claude Chabrol and Bertrand Tavernier love this film.

Watch "Voici le temps des assassins" at all costs!!!!

When you post as many comments on this site as I do the Law of Averages dictates that you receive a certain amount of feedback in the form of PMs and I guess I've had my share both pro and con. A little over a year ago I posted a comment on a French film made during the war and largely forgotten certainly outside France. Shortly after it appeared a received a PM from a French guy who was very pleased that someone had mentioned this film. Since that time we corresponded spasmodically then out of the blue he wrote and asked if I would like him to tape any French films from French TV and if so which. Naturally I jumped at the chance and asked for anything directed by Henri Decoin, Julian Duvivier, Claude Autant-Lara and anything written by Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost, Charles Spaak, Henri Jeanson and Jacques Prevert and the upshot is I have just received several great French movies including this late masterpiece by Julian Duvivier. I won't reveal the guy's name lest he is inundated with those both anxious and willing to trespass on his kindness but I am delighted to use this forum to record what positives can come from IMDb which has, alas, many things wrong with it. Now for the movie. There are those who may find it referential - Gabin's mother runs a dance hall on the banks of the Marne and a decade earlier Gabin himself as one of Duvivier's Belle Equipe built a similar establishment in a similar location; In Rene Clair's Le Silence est d'Or a young girl prevailed on an older man to take her in and here Daniel Delorme prevails on the older Gabin in much the same way - but not to its detriment. Gabin runs a restaurant in Les Halles, the wonderful market in Paris which has gone the way of London's Covent Garden but which was very much alive in 1956 when this film was made, he's a genial sort, always ready to see the good in people rather than the worst so when Delorme, the daughter of his estranged wife, turns up claiming orphan status he is happy to take her in despite the fact that he has an adoptive son already. Of course the mother is not really dead and Delorme is not half so naive or angelic as she lets on; we get our first glimpse of her darker/colder side when she coolly rejects an old lover and watches dispassionately as he throws himself under a camion, barely registering the impact before hurrying to a rendezvous with her very much alive and drink and drug-raddled mother where they fine tune plans to seduce Gabin and divvy up his money. The black and white photography complements the story perfectly and reminds us at times of that other classic Les Diaboliques and there are some lovely touches like Gabin's mother's mastery of a whip which she uses with equal dexterity for despatching chickens and chastising Delorme. In short this is one of the finest films that ever got right up Truffaut's nose and if only he'd tried to make something one tenth as good instead of slagging off these films we'd all have been a lot happier. Not to be missed.