Panique (1946) - December 18, 2018

[Scottie]

Panique (1946)

Proud, eccentric, and antisocial, Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon) has always kept to himself. But after a woman turns up dead in the Paris suburb where he lives, he feels drawn to a pretty young newcomer to town (Viviane Romance), discovers that his neighbors are only too ready to be suspicious of him, and is framed for the murder. Based on a novel by Georges Simenon, Julien Duvivier’s first film after his return to France from Hollywood finds the acclaimed poetic realist applying his consummate craft to darker, moodier ends. Propelled by its two deeply nuanced lead performances, the tensely noirish Panique exposes the dangers of the knives-out mob mentality, delivering as well a pointed allegory of the behavior of Duvivier’s countrymen during the war.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• The Art of Subtitling, a new short documentary by Bruce Goldstein, founder and copresident of Rialto Pictures, about the history of subtitles
• New interview with author Pierre Simenon, the son of novelist Georges Simenon
• Conversation from 2015 between critics Guillemette Odicino and Eric Libiot about director Julien Duvivier and the film’s production history
• Rialto Pictures rerelease trailer
• New English subtitle translation by Duvivier expert Lenny Borger
• PLUS: Essays by film scholar James Quandt and Borger

[javi92]

Really great film. Saw a 35mm print last year. Kept hoping an English friendly release would turn up.

[bruce holecheck]

Wrote this one up after a theatrical screening last year:

PANIQUE (Julien Duvivier, 1946)
Rialto Pictures​ DCP (Theatrical)

In a small town outside Paris, an elderly woman's strangled corpse is discovered in a vacant lot. The residents are a suspicious group, and as the police begin their investigation, the only one disinterested in the whole affair is the eccentric Monsieur Hire, a callous loner who seems perpetually in the periphery, camera in hand. Coinciding with the murder is the arrival of Alice, fresh from the a stint in the slammer for a botched robbery, a rap she took for lover Alfred, who's also living in town under an assumed name. With cops in tow, they concoct plans for a secret reunion, but as the search for the killer escalates, they come up with another scheme to divert any unwanted attention.

A troubling look at the horrors of mob mentality and communal manipulation, PANIQUE is a dark little film whose chain of events predicts a bleak course; you spend a solid chunk of the duration hoping the innocent will persevere through the seemingly inevitable, as the tension mounts to progressively uncomfortable levels. Great performances from the three leads, plenty of quirky secondary characters and some gorgeous B&W photography of post-war Europe (love that traveling carnival!) mark this one a winner -- just don't go in expecting a feel-good romp. Definitely noir at its most fatalistic. 7/10

[CBHampson]

Hell yea

[MeMynonsense]

Terrific film! The remake Monsieur Hire isn't too bad either.
Hopefully more Duvivier in the new year (Pepe le Moko, Marie-Octobre, Deadlier Than the Male etc could all do with upgrades).

[The Great Owl]

I'm all in, since unsettling movies about mob mentality are one of my cinema sweet spots.

(Criterion's Canoa: A Shameful Memory is another such flick.)

[Aclea]

That'll be my Christmas present to myself. Hopefully they or Arrow can get Patrice Leconte's superb version Monsieur Hire sooner rather than later.

[tomkatholic]

It's still with Kino, best to bug the Insider to upgrade it

[exzachary]

I love how one of the members of the criterion forum said this movie was a "pitch-black critique of French Vichyism". Never mind the fact that the book on which the film was based on was written in 1933, seven years before the French collaboration. I love the pseudo-intellectuals on that site.

[tomkatholic]

I would skip the extras on the disc, then

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by exzachary

I love how one of the members of the criterion forum said this movie was a "pitch-black critique of French Vichyism". Never mind the fact that the book on which the film was based on was written in 1933, seven years before the French collaboration. I love the pseudo-intellectuals on that site.

Without having read the 1933 book or having seeing the 1946 movie, I'll say that it's not uncommon for film adaptations to feature contemporary sociopolitical observations specific to the era of production that were not present in their older literary sources.

Jack Finney's 1954 novel, The Body Snatchers, for example, did not feature the hip-psychology aura of post-hippie-era San Francisco that is marvelously represented in Philip Kaufman's 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers adaptation.

[Aclea]

Originally Posted by exzachary

I love how one of the members of the criterion forum said this movie was a "pitch-black critique of French Vichyism". Never mind the fact that the book on which the film was based on was written in 1933, seven years before the French collaboration. I love the pseudo-intellectuals on that site.

Yet the film was made two years after the fall of Vichy France, and Duvivier was very open at the time that the film was inspired by recent events and the collaboration of the Vichy era and the occupation (something he returned to in Marie-Octobre) - and was heavily criticised in France for 'judging' the French people when he'd spent the war years in Hollywood. The film was so badly received and such a flop there he couldn't get another film made in France for three years. (Marcel Carne's career was similarly derailed for a few years by the hostile reception to the same year's Les Portes de la Nuit which prominently featured a pair of collaborators.)

[lemonski]

Coincidentally I just saw this a couple of days ago, it’s pretty great. Noir enthusiasts will like it. Can’t say the same about Criterion’s anemic extras - a documentary on the history of subtitles, really?

[evilive]

Never heard of this film until now. That artwork is absolutely killer though.