la môme vert-de-gris aka Poison Ivy (1953) Casablanca/French "B" Noir

It was the start of a film career for Eddie Constantine. 

Who ?

I know I asked myself that same question. The only other film I've seen Eddie in up to about a week ago was Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (1965). I wasn't impressed at the time. Then while sampling more of Diana Dors' output I watched Room 43 aka Passport to Shame (1958) a few days ago (to be reviewed soon), where Eddie plays a Canadian cab driver in London who agrees to marry a French girl for cash. Reminding me a lot of Michael Shannon, Eddie really impresses with his performance.

So from there I managed to snag an English language copy of Poison Ivy. Its his first feature film and really not expecting much I was pleasantly surprised. You an watch it on Amazon Prime most of the film is intact, but cuts are made that excise a few risque strippers. A new Bluray has the film beautifully restored but its all in French. That was a mistake. Eddie c onstantine should be better known in his own country.

Eddie Constantine as Lemmie Caution

Eddie was born in Los Angeles in 1913. He tried to have a singing career. He went to Vienna for voice training. That fizzled. Back in The City Of Angels he got work in the movie business as an extra. His first real screen credit was Egypt by Three (1953) it was the first American picture filmed entirely in Egypt. For Eddie that went nowhere. But it got Eddie back across the pond. So Eddie returned to his first passion and headed from Egypt to France and started singing in Parisian cabarets. In Paris he got noticed by Edith Piaf. Piaf was France's "national chanteuse." She cast Eddie in a musical and he later helped Edith with English transitions on her album La Vie en Rose/Édith Piaf Sings In English.

The cabaret gigs and the musical gets Eddie noticed by Bernard Borderie a produer/director, and is cast as the lead in the first of a series of films as "Lemmie" Caution. Lemmie Caution was the creation of British crime fiction writer Peter Cheyney, In a series of books between 1936 and 1951, Cheyney depicted Caution as originally an FBI agent who eventually becomes a Private Eye. These were the equivalent to the Pulp Fiction stories found in Black Mask. If you think the name "Lemmie" Caution sounds a bit weird remember that Spillane's Mike Hammer also started out as Mike Danger.

After the liberation, France was understandably infatuated with everything American, when the first films hit the Paris theaters the critics noticed that they were about dark subjects that reminded them of what right wing newspapers used to call Film Noir. Most (but not all of them) were about Crime. Those first American films were dealing with the dark sides of the human condition inluding adultery, murder plots, private detectives and femme fatales.

The French became addicted to American culture, stories, and heroes. So not only did Hammett, Chandler, Woolrich etc., find new readers but so did Cheney. When Bernard Borderie cast Eddie Constantine as Lemuel "Lemmie" Caution he kind of caught lightning in a bottle.

Constantine was no pretty boy matinée idol by American standards. He has the look of a rough and tough street bruiser. Think Bogart. Originally Bogart was never considered as a lead. On first impression in this first film, the Caution character is like taking the ingredients of Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, and Mike Hammer and putting it all in a blender with 007 and Matt Helm.

Womanizer

Caution is a smart aleck, wisecracking, womanizer, always ready to put the moves on whatever split tail meets his fancy.

Casablanca

As a bonus, in this film, you get sprinkled in the real and quite sleazy looking back alley international locations of Casablanca and Tangier, with a Casablanca cabaret strip show routine as icing on the cake. How cool is that? Remember this was 1953, it would be ten years before any American film would remotely come close to having that kind of freedom.

The Shipwreck

The screenplay was written by Bernard Borderie along with Jacques Berland who provided the dialog. The Cinematography was by Jacques Lemare, and the Music was by Guy Lafarge.

The film stars Eddie Constantine as Lemmy Caution, Dominique Wilms as Carlotta de la Rue, Howard Vernon as Rudy Saltierra, Darío Moreno as Joe Madrigal, Maurice Ronet as Mickey, Nicolas Vogel as Kerts, Philippe Hersent as Le commissaire, Jess Hahn as  Le marin-geolier, Gaston Modot as L'inspecteur #1, and Paul Azaïs as Le patron du bistrot.

The story

Casablanca. An American Treasury agent in Morocco gets intelligence concerning a gold smuggling operation. He ends up dead. The FBI is notified and they dispatch agent Lemule Caution who speaks French to root-out the culprits. Arriving at the Casablanca airport he receives a call from his FBI contact, an old bureau friend. The call abruptly gets cut off. After checking his bags at his hotel he heads straight to their rendezvous The Shipwreck a nightclub owned by Joe Madrigal. In the film its neon reads  Chez Joe Madrigal "le naufrage."

At the nightclub Eddie looks around for his contact. Nada. But he does notice and appreciate the strip show and Carlotta de la Rue aka "Poison Ivy" a striking blonde chanteuse in a tight green sheath of a dress with a Veronica Lake do. She is accompanied by Rudy Saltierra a shady character. Carlotta also has a vendetta. Just before Eddie arrives in Casablanca her brother has his skull bashed in. He dies at a hospital. Carlotta suspects everyone.

When Eddie goes to the phone to call the embassy about his AWOL contact, he finds his buddies dead body slumped on the floor. Soon after that, during Carlotta's number a man who was sitting at her table is shot in the back. Welcome to Noirsville. Its not Rick's Cassablanca anymore.

Noirsville

Screencaps are from the Pathé Blu ray. A must watch, for English language version rent from Amazon Prime. 7/10. I'll definitely be checking out the the rest of the Lemmie Caution films.