Le monte-charge aka Paris Pickup (1962) Parisian Christmas Noir

"A criminally unknown Noir in the U.S., Excellent!" (Noirsville)

Directed by Marcel Bluwal. 

Bluwal toiled at helming mostly TV films and mini series throughout his career. This Noir is a one off.  He is also known more recently for À droite toute a TV Mini Series (2008). 

The film was written by Marcel Bluwal and Frédéric Dard, based on Frédéric Dard's novel. Also known in English as Bird In A Cage. 

The excellent Cinematography was by André Bac (a noted Cinematographer for one of the original Poetic Realist Noir Le Jour Se Leve (1939), also lensed Les portes de la nuit aka Gates of the Night (1946). 

Music was by Georges Delerue (Black Robe (1991), Le dernier métro aka The Last Metro (1980), The Day of the Jackal (1973),  L'homme de Rio aka That Man from Rio (1964), Chair de poule aka Highway Pick-Up (1963), Le mépris aka Contempt (1963)). Kudos also to whoever (uncredited) did the excellent sound design. The production companies responsible were Galatea Film, Marianne Productions, and Société Nouvelle des Établissements Gaumont (SNEG).

The film stars Robert Hossein (known for Noirs Du rififi chez les hommes (1955), Toi... le venin (1958), and Chair de poule (1963)) as Robert Herbin, Italian actress Lea Massari ( L'avventura (1960)) as Marthe Dravet, Robert Dalban (know for Noirs Quai des Orfèvres (1947), Les diaboliques (1955), Berlin Express (1948), Un témoin dans la ville (1959), and  Chair de poule (1963) as L'inspecteur, Maurice Biraud (Mélodie en sous-sol (1963) as Adolphe Ferry, and Pascale Brouillard as little Nicole.

This film is one of the true Christmas Noir with the story taking place entirely on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The Story

Darkness and a thin sliver of light in the lower right. (This serves also as the title sequence)

The sounds of life. Footsteps. A distant woman's voice almost echos in a hallway. She was vaguely yelling about bread. A slamming door. A kids feet running down a stairway. Getting louder. A change of cadence across a landing. Then again feet down a stairway. Getting Distant. Slower footsteps climbing the stair and then increasing in speed and volume walking across the landing. The 2nd story. The sliver of light is broken into fragments by two feet and their shadows. The jingling sound of keys. A key turning in a lock. The door creaks as it swings open. It opened to a passage to place frozen in time. A silhouette of a man carrying a suitcase. 

The hall light briefly floods the floor of a hall strewn with unopened letters, and casts a mans shadow further into the interior. He enters and shuts the door. Darkness. We adjust our sight to the low ambient light and we meet Robert Herbin. Ex con. Just out of  prison. "La taule," the slammer, the barbed wire hotel. He did seven years. 

He's in a tenement flop. His mother's place. A mausoleum to the last breath of motherhood, and a of sort museum of his childhood. Everything is as it was with the exception that the walls are festooned with  photographs of Robert at various ages. She never saw him free again. He never got to hug her one last time. She died four years ago. 

He opens the door to his room and it's exactly how he left it. His trusty bike sits resting upside down on its seat and handlebars. On his desk someone left his mother's death certificate. 

Robert Hebrin (Robert Hossein)

It's Christmas Eve. 1961.  Asnières-sur-Seine and Clichy northwestern communes (neiborhoods) of Hauts- de-Seine suburb of Paris, split by the River Seine and connected by the Pont d'Asnières. 

Later, Robert wanders his old neighborhoods looking in the Yuletide decorated shop windows. A small crowd of adults and children are gathered, enchanted by a flickering of "le petit écran," the small screen, a TV in a window. Capturing Robert for a moment, he joins them and then wanders off. An accordion plays "merry" Christmas carols. 

I want a hacksaw

A small child dragged along by his mother is nagging her with what he'd wants for presents. He wants a hacksaw. Then another tool, and another. He mother finally tells him to stop or he'll end up getting just a bagel. lol. Two women are looking a sexy lingerie and talking about tropical getaways. Are they talking about a honeymoon or an affaire?

We hear the shriek of a steam locomotive whistle from the nearby SNCF mainline tracks that run through the neighborhood and then cut to a train passing by on the viaduct. These whistle shrieks recur at interesting intervals throughout the film, almost as warnings.

We see Robert feeling like a kid again has  his hands pressed to a toy shop window. He's looking down and watches an HO gauge toy train running on a circle track. 

Randomly, two gendarme come up behind him and walk into the shop. Robert follows behind them and eventually buys a tree ornament (in the novel it's a velvet bird in a cardboard cage the "Bird In the Cage" of the book's English title and a visual play on the words Le monte-charge which is a open sided freight elevator which resembles bird cage). 

Like a kid again

The bird ornament

The ornament in the film is just a glittery bird with a tinsel tail on a coil spring. The shopkeeper recognises him. The two women whisper as he leaves. We cut back again to the toy train circling. The world turns. 

She knows who he is

Later..... Le Cercle. 

It's a fancy restaurant decorated with a garlanded strand of white lightbulbs at the edge of it's awning. It's a posh restaurant for that neighborhood. Robert has just finished eating a big Christmas Eve dinner. 

Satisfied and content Robert takes out a pack of smokes, removes a cigarette and noticeably breaks off the filter before he lights up. He looks around the restaurant and spots Nicole, a little girl who is watching him, mesmerized, sitting at a nearby table. 

Nicole

Her mother Marthe Dravet scolds her, hands Nicole her fork, making her finish what is on her plate. Only then does Marthe furtively glance back over her shoulder at Robert. They both like what the other sees. 

Marthe Dravet (Lia Messari)

Marthe, wearing her leopard skin coat and Nicole in a rabbit trimmed hooded winter jacket leave the restaurant, cross the street, pass a sidewalk Père Noël, and go towards the Alcazar a theater. At the box-office Marthe looks back to see if Robert has followed. He has. He smiles at her.

In the theater Robert sits directly behind Marthe and Nicole and during the show. Robert boldly places his hand on her shoulder. Marthe reacts complacently by clasping one of Roberts fingers. 

Later we see Robert carrying a sleeping Nicole as they cross the Seine into Asnières. They go down the deserted streets of a nighttime industrial district stopping at the combined foot and vehicle entrance to Dravet Publishing. 

Pont d'Asnières

Marthe takes out her keys and unlocks the foot entrance and boldly asks Robert if he'd like to come up for a drink. Robert of course agrees. They enter the loading dock yard, and cross to the factory building. Marthe has an apartment in one of the factory's lofts. It's accessed by both stairs and a freight elevator i.e le monte-charge of the films title. 

Marthe shuts off the alarm system and walks to the elevator. She slides open the cage like door and they get into the car. Marthe presses the button and the elevator slowly ascends. The changing light filtering through the patterns of chain-link and lattice throws a mesmerizing flicker on Marthe's smiling face.  

They enter the loft apartment. Marthe has Robert lay Nicole in a hall chair. She tells Robert that she doesn't want her to see the Christmas tree and presents until morning. Marthe opens to door the to the living room and we see a  nicely decorated tree. She takes off her coat and offers him a drink. 

Marthe turns on a record player and it starts to go Noirsville immediately when instead of...

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

Baby, don't hold out

Baby, it's cold outside."

Christmas music, we hear loud bongos, lol. Sort of Anti Christmas music, lol. You know your in the Transitional Noir territory when you the signature bongos on the soundtrack. 

Marthe explains to Robert that she likes Brazilian Music and gets to play it loud since there are no neighbors. Robert asks if it will wake up Nicole but Marthe poo poos him telling Robert that Nicole is used to it. Marthe, excuses herself for five minutes and tells Robert that she is going to put Nicole to bed.  

Robert nonchalantly takes off his jacket and scopes out her lair. He spots a picture of Marthe and her husband pushing a baby-carriage. Robert takes another cigarette out of the pack again ripping off the filter. He searches his jacket pockets for a light, then remembers its in his trench coat. Checking the pockets he finds the bird ornament he bought, and he gleefully puts it on a protruding branch of Marthe's tree. "Merry Christmas to me" he thinking. 

Marthe comes back into the room and they toast to a Joyeux Noel a Merry Christmas. Only then finally, Marthe tells Robert her name and Robert tells her his. A cute meet with two lonely strangers hooking up on Christmas Eve for a little Christmas "Cheer"? You'd think so but it's a Christmas Eve in Noirsville.

From this point on neither Robert or Marthe is telling the exact truth to the other. Robert asks about her husband. She tells him that he's off with his mistress. They sit on the couch and Robert thinks he's gonna get lucky, thinks Christmas is going to come just a bit early. He grabs Marthe and kisses her but she breaks it off telling him she wants to go out for more drinks first. OK, more liquor is quicker. 

They walk back across Pont d'Asnières. Robert shows Marthe where his mother's apartment is. She wants to see. They go up. There Robert again tries to get Marthe to make some love. They lay on the bed kiss and fool around, but again Marthe eventually stops him telling him that she's sticky and wants to wash up a bit. That's plausible, Ok. Considerate even, depending on what she wants, no?  That hope gets shot down when they discover that the water to the apartment has been turned off. No!!!

fooling around

Robert gets a bit upset but Marthe, suggests that they find an open café and she can wash up there. From the café Marthe then suggests they take a taxi back to her loft. He thinks now, that she's just leading him on. A tease. At the entrance to the factory Robert fulfilling his duties as an escort, is turning to walk back home, but Marthe invites him up. They kiss passionately by the door. We hear once again the shriek of a locomotive whistle. A warning?

Passion & Whistle Shriek sequence

They ascend kissing and fondling all the way in the monte-charge. They walk across to the door of the loft and unlock it. Marthe opens the door inward and turns on the light. In the small foyer a coat and scarf hangs from the bamboo coat rack, and a fedora sits on the shelf. 

Love in an elevator

Marthe a bit shocked, calls out her husbands name. No answer. She opens the door to the Livingroom and the body of her husband is laying sprawled across the couch with a revolver in his hand. A suicide. Robert bewildered also notices just accidently that his bird ornament has disappeared. WTF?

the bird ornament is curiously missing

Marthe immediately wants to call the police. However, Robert panics ripping the phone from her grasp. He tells her he just got out of a seven year prison stretch (for being involved with the death of his bosses wife in a crime of passion), and that he's breaking parole if he's caught in his old neighborhood. Marthe tells him to get out then.

Robert runs out of the loft, down the stairs. He hits the electric buzzer that unlocks the foot door and runs out of the factory. He doesn't stop until he hits a café that is open. There, he gathers his senses and asks for a telephone. He calls Marthe at the number he memorized that was printed on the factory's sign at the entrance. When Marthe finally answers he tells her he was sorry and that he just lost his head. He asks her if she called the police she tells him no and abruptly hangs up on him.

Here was Robert's out. His exit out of Noirsville. Does he take it? No. What does he do? He goes back to the factory to try too maybe smooth things over. But when he just gets to the street door he hears the buzzer that unlocks the doorway from the watchman's office.

Bizzzzt!

 Startled Robert ducks back a few feet into a corner provided by the adjacent building. 

Robert watches as Marthe with Nicole again in tow head off down the street.....

Noirsville

Not only a great noir but a Christmas Noir too boot. This film should be more well known. It hits on all cylinders. Hossein and Massari complement each other well. Massari's Marthe, is one cold and calculating desperate femme fatale. The cinematography is excellent, the soundtrack haunting in its eclectic mix. This one your first go round will keep you guessing. The screencaps are from the Gaumont DVD. 10/10. Needs a DVD release with English subs Gaumont, there's a Film Noir renaissance going on.

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