I'm continuing my Jean-Pierre Melville exploration, and last night I watched his 1963 film Magnet of Doom. While I didn't like it as much as some of his other films, I still liked it a fair bit. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as Michel Maudet, an ex-boxer and paratrooper, who wanders into the criminal world, and becomes a personal secretary of Dieudonne Fercahaus (who I mainly remember from Clouzot's The Wages of Fear), a corrupt banker on the run. They end up in the US, driving across country, and eventually hiding out in the deep South near New Orleans. It ends up as a commentary, from a French sensibility, of the mystery that is America. It was odd to see Stefania Sandrelli (who I always associate with Antonio Pietrangeli's great I Knew Her Well) in a very small, but key, role as a hitchhiker. Michele Mercier (who I think I first saw in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath) plays a dancer in New Orleans. Recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment