|
|
Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 8, No. 34 |
|
BOOK & FILM |
 |
"WALTZ INTO DARKNESS" and FRANCOIS TRUFFAUT'S "MISSISSIPPI MERMAID" |
 |
Woolrich's historical noir
becomes a 1960s mystery
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
In 1947, Cornell Woolrich, the father of noir mystery fiction, used his frequent pseudonym William Irish, to take a bold turn in the direction of his writing and published a historical novel in the serie noir tradition. He called it "Waltz into Darkness."
Though set in the 19th century in America's south, "Waltz into Darkness" had almost all the essential ingredients the French critics later established as "dark" enough to qualify as noir. The story's hero, a successful middle-aged New Orleans businessman, succumbs to temptation, ravages his soul and becomes a wanted man. He begins living another of those "lives of quiet desperation" as he became lost in the moral "labyrinth." And, naturally enough, a beautiful femme fatale is the cause of all his woe, starting him on his downward spiral.
Louis Durand has arranged to marry Julia
Russell, a spinster who's scheduled to arrive in New Orleans
by riverboat. They have exchanged letters and he has seen a picture
of her, but he has never actually met her. He has been dishonest
with her in only one respect: He has not told her he's
a wealthy man because he doesn't want to become prey to a fortune
hunter.
For Durand, this represents his last real chance to find marital
happiness. The woman he was to marry 15 years earlier died on
the eve of their wedding, dashing all his hopes of wedded bliss.
Now that he's financially successful and settled in his life,
he has purposely chosen a respectable, decent woman to be his
wife. A wife and family are the last unfulfilled dreams of his
life.
But it seems Julia Russell has been slightly dishonest with him, too. When she arrives, he discovers she's rapturously beautiful, not the plain girl of the picture. He is jubilant over this turn, just as she is when she learns he's not just a contented wage-earner, but a very rich man.
In rather short order, though, Durand realizes Julia is the very fortune hunter he feared would come after him someday. She quickly seizes control of his bank accounts and one day cleans them out, disappearing without a trace. Furious, he realizes he has not only become the victim of a scam artist and thief, but perhaps also a murderess. Julia's distraught sister contacts Durand, demanding to know what has become of Julia and why she has never written a line to her since boarding that riverboat.
Another author might have been content to pursue the story along conventional lines: Durand and the real Julia's sister team up, hire a detective and begin a search for the sinister imposter, culminating in a dramatic finale when she's found in the arms of her male accomplice, happily spending Durand's fortune. Vengeance at last can be Durand's.
But Woolrich, whose own attempt at wedded bliss ended with an annulled marriage and the late discovery that he was homosexual, never follows the conventional route. His hero pursues the false Julia, all right, but because he's still desperately in love with her, wants to forgive her and follow her as she leads him further into decadence and the dark corridors of the human soul.
It was fitting that a French film director should decide to turn "Waltz into Darkness" into a feature film. It was the French who made Woolrich's novels best sellers in their land while he was being ignored by American readers. And it was the French who hailed him as the father of noir. The task of filming "Waltz into Darkness" fell to Francois Truffaut, who had been one of those very film critics who first identified the noir element in American films of the 1940s. Truffaut already had filmed one Woolrich novel--"The Bride Wore Black"--in 1967 and two years later filmed "Waltz into Darkness" as "Mississippi Mermaid."
Though "Waltz into Darkness," because of its period, its opulent New Orleans setting and beguiling villainess, is one of the most romantic of Woolrich's novels, Truffaut obviously decided the historical setting worked against its potential commercial appeal. He yanked the story forward into the 1960s, which by itself created some serious credibility problems for him.
For one thing, the conceit of a mail order bride made a whole lot more sense in the 19th century than the late 20th century. For that reason--and I suspect a few other practical economic reasons--Truffaut starts his tale on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, then moves the second half of the story to rural France. Is Reunion Island so remote that mail order brides were still on order in 1969? I doubt it, but since I don't know anything about life there, I guess I'll take his word for it.
The names of the characters are changed. Louis Durand becomes Louis Mahe and Julia Russell becomes Julie Roussel. Durand was a coffee merchant in the novel, but he's dealing tobacco in the film. Those are acceptable switches, but the casting of the characters is troublesome. Truffaut gives us Catherine Deneuve as Julie. No problem there. Deneuve was--and still is--among the most beautiful women to ever appear on the screen. Would I still be panting for her even after she cleaned out my bank accounts? I wouldn't be surprised. She works as Julie.
But Truffaut cast iconic French film hero Jean Paul Belmondo as Louis, obviously with his eye on the box office. Belmondo and Deneuve made a scorching team--and their romantic scenes are pretty lively. But Belmondo was the Bogart of the New Wave French cinema--a tough guy who, as Bogart might have put it, seldom "played the sap" for a dame in his pictures. Belmondo isn't such an extraordinary actor that he can make me believe his obsessive love for Julie either. A better choice would have been someone slightly schlubby, i.e. Philippe Noiret, a better actor who certainly could have convinced me he'd be happy to buy a one-way ticket to Palookaville rather than give up a day of his sack time with the extravagantly sexy Deneuve.
Faced with a storyline that shows the Belmondo character totally destroyed by his obsessive love, Truffaut chose to give "Mississippi Mermaid" an ambiguous, but promisingly happier ending. We don't know where the characters eventually end up, but we can hope Deneuve finally comes to love the man she's been leaving tire tracks all over through most of the film.
And here's another oddity of the French movies made from American noir mystery classics: They always seem to be filmed in bright colors with lots of gorgeous outdoor settings and none of the dark shadows that seem de rigeur for such shadowy tales.
"Mississippi Mermaid" is not a bad movie, but it's no longer Woolrich in flavor and really wouldn't have belonged in the noir category if we never saw the source credits for the novel it was based upon.
Though Truffaut made many films I admire, I never thought mystery was his particular thing, despite his worship of Alfred Hitchcock's films and his frequent attempts to emulate Hitchcock's style. As the Woolrich authority Thomas C. Renzi suggests in his brilliant work "Cornell Woolrich: From Pulp Noir to Film Noir" (McFarland, 2004), Truffaut seemed to be trying to turn "Waltz into Darkness" into his own take on Hitchcock's "Vertigo," especially since both films are about one man's obsessive love for a mysterious woman who impersonates someone else.
In 2001, another filmmaker--writer and director Michael Cristofer--did yet another version of "Waltz into Darkness" called "Original Sin" with Antonio Banderas succumbing to the sexual attraction of Angelina Jolie, the actress Cristofer had directed in the TV movie "Gia" in 1998. We'll have more to say about that version at another time.
In the meantime, my assessment of "Mississippi Mermaid" is that Truffaut hewed fairly closely to the Woolrich storyline, except for the disappointing ending, but made it a modern story, which I consider a serious mistake. It's certainly worth watching, but if you love Woolrich's dark view of humanity, you're bound to experience a letdown.
©2007 by Ron Miller. The cover of "Waltz into Darkness" is courtesy of Penguin Books. The cover of the "Mississippi Mermaid" DVD is courtesy of MGM Home Video. This column first posted Aug. 20, 2007.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
You can comment on this column online. Please address your message to either "The Editors" or Ron Miller. To send an email, click here and don't forget to mention Ron's name: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|