clanciai A gorgeous dramatization of the French revolution in its dying phase with all the leaders going down, Danton, Robespierre and St. Just, with Robert Cummings as a kind if French pimpernel working for Lafayette to unsettle the revolutionary establishment that has derailed into terror. It's a marvellous intrigue, with a beautiful lady at the centre, of course, and with some great acting that should be noted, especially Richard Baseheart (!) as Robespierre - it's impossible to recognize him. Can you see Captain Ahab's number one Starbuck or Fellini's jester in La Strada in this Robespierre? Equally outstanding is Arnold Moss as Fouché, oiling his ways into and out of intrigues and finally facing Napoleon. To all this comes a terrific score by Saul Kaplan. It's almost expressionistic and gives a very sharp impression of the drama of the French revolution.What then is failing? It's just slightly out of any realism. It's too adventurous, too much turned into an artificial thriller, and unfortunastely Jess Barker is totally miscast as St. Just - he is not convincing at all, and St.Just was not like that. He was an effeminate dandy and no soldier.Still, it's a brilliant film with terrific action all the way, that can't disappoint anyone.

joe-pearce-1 This is a unique film, nothing quite like it on the French Revolution having been seen before or since it was made. The director and cameraman manage to disguise the fact that it is quite a low-budget affair by means of near-fantastical camera work and angles. Even the near-final scene between the 'citizens' and Richard Basehart's maniacal Robespierre seems to be shot with him in close-up, but in front of a back screen of people screaming for his blood. Perhaps this was a way of not having to pay extras for several days of work until Basehart, or the director, or the cinematographer, could get the difficult scene totally under control. Whatever the case, it works beautifully. This is the only true 'costume' noir I can recall, but that French term was neither in existence nor even thought about when Anthony Mann was making this film. Mann went on to a huge career in both spectacles and major Westerns, but directorially he did nothing much better than this. (Any man who can effectively direct the diverse talents of James Stewart, Alec Guinness, Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren and Mario Lanza has much to recommend him!) I saw this when it came out in 1949 and didn't even know what "reign' was, going home to Mom and telling her I'd just seen 'the raygen of terror'. She looked perplexed, so maybe the later title of THE BLACK BOOK was a better choice; it certainly sounds more noirish. Some ill-advised comments have been made here about the two leads, but Robert Cummings, although he excelled in light and sometimes silly comedy, had a solid grounding in excellent dramatic work - between 1942 and 1954 he was also the star of KING'S ROW (yes, he had the starring male role, not Ronald Reagan), Hitchcock's SABOTEUR, then FLESH AND FANTASY, THE LOST MOMENT and SLEEP, MY LOVE, and also as co-star of Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER, not to mention taking a lovely turn as an angel in a movingly bittersweet and still little-known comedy-drama Western called HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS, where he comes to Earth to escort a little boy's soul back to Heaven, but finds him still alive; the rest of the film's lightness of heart is burdened by the fact that while we get close to the little boy, both we and the angel know he must die; Cummings makes it all work in what can only be termed a near-angelic performance! (Mann also used, more than once, the somewhat similar Dennis O'Keefe, an excellent dramatic lead who was also a phenomenally good farceur - even better than Cummings - when given the opportunity.) Low budget or not, they had to borrow Arlene Dahl from M-G-M for this one, and I'd strongly suggest that anyone who thinks Ms. Dahl could provide only beauty to a good acting cast has obviously never seen her as the two-timing and grasping lead of NO QUESTIONS ASKED or as Rhonda Fleming's psychopathic bad sister in SLIGHTLY SCARLET. A load of top-flight character actors - Arnold Moss, Norman Lloyd, Charles McGraw and Beulah Bondi - take turns at almost stealing the film, but the leads hold onto their characters and do full justice to their best reputations, most especially Basehart (an actor who, despite a near-profound acting versatility, never seemed to quite find his niche in movies, which probably says more about us than it does about him). Anyway, it really deserves a 10 rating, but I must restrict myself to a 9 due to that damned budget, which encourages imagination on the parts of all concerned but still leaves you wishing a more Hitchcockian funding could have been found for the film. But Hitchcock had, earlier on, excelled at making masterpieces on starvation budgets and Mann follows nobly in his footsteps, for this remains a delightfully suspenseful and engrossing outing from beginning to end.

dbdumonteil It's funny to watch how Hollywood treats French history .Historically this terror evocation leaves a lot to be desired .Nothing for instance concerns the reason why the terror was instituted:at the time the country had to fight two enemies :the foreign countries and the royalists .At the beginning ,the terror was "useful" ,although they killed a lot of innocents (including the genius Lavoisier who virtually invented chemistry ,the poet Chénier and the suffragette Olympe de Gouges ,one of the first women to claim sexual equality).In the movie,Barras ,who played a prominent part in the fall of RObespierre has a minor part ,except in the final scenes .Instead we have a chivalrous noble (Robert Cummings) and his gorgeous mistress Madelon (Arlene Dahl).For good measure they hint at the unfortunate late Marie-Antoinette and Bonaparte appears in the flesh towards the end ,as the messiah (?).PLus "La Carmagnole" "AH CA Ira! and ,all the same ,"La Marseillaise " (earlier "Le Chant Des Marseillais" ) which was at the time a revolutionary song.They seem to promise a brighter future if we are to believe the screenwriters Take it for what it is :pure entertainment and forget French history!

Jay Raskin There are no good movies about the French Revolution. Griffith's "Ophans of the Storm" is probably the best. Still, it is a caricature of history, more interested in melodrama and montage than history. Marat/Sade is incredible, but it is about madness, sex and violence more than the Revolution. "Danton" and "Tale of Two Cities" are morality tales.This movie takes the typical Dickensonian/British propaganda elements about the revolution -- bloodthirsty mob, power-hungry dictator and bourgeois heroes trying to stop the terrible reign of terror. There is no mention naturally of the tens of thousands of peasants slaughtered by Catholic militias or foreign invading armies of the aristocrats.There are some interesting camera angles that enhance the melodramatic elements, but this is typical of chase=spy movies of the time. With Cameron Mendez producing I thought the sets would be exciting, but only near the end when Danton addresses the assembly do we get something beyond the mundane.Robert Cummings, who is great in Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" and "Saboteur," has nothing to work with here. There is too much nastiness going on, and his attempts at light humor don't work. This is one of Richard Basehart's first movies and he is good in the last fifteen minutes of the film, but before that he is twirling mustache evil. Arnold Moss stands out as the sleazy, but surprisingly honest Fouche.Some people consider this a great neo-film noir. I don't see it.I'm still waiting for a film that is really about the French Revolution that tries to seriously understand it.