Written & Directed by Georges Lautner (The Professional (1981), La maison assassinée).
The film is based on Maurice Cury's novel La Route de Salina. Pascal Jardin and Jack Miller contributing dialogue and assisting with the adaptation. The excellent cinematography was by Maurice Fellous, Music by Christophe (Kill Bill), Clinic and Bernard Gérard.
The film stars Mimsy Farmer (The Outer Limits TV Series, 1963–1965, The Girl from Trieste) ) as Billie Salerno, Robert Walker (Route 66, The Naked City, Easy Rider) as Jonas / Rocky. Ed Begley (vet of 10 Classic Noir) as Warren, David Sachs as the Sheriff, Bruce Pecheur as Charlie, Ivano Staccioli as Linda's Husband, and Sophie Hardy as Linda, and also starring Rita Hayworth (Gilda, Lady From Shanghai) as Mara Salerno.
This was quite the find. Why is it off the Noir-dar charts?
No surprise there, when its been basically repeated rote that Films Noir were part of the Crime Genre since Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton published A Panorama of American Film Noir. They stated erroneously, that Nino Frank coined the term to describe the American films that hit Paris after the Liberation. They completely neglected to mention the other French critic Jean-Pierre Chartier – who also used the term “film noir,” he wrote "Americans Also Make Noir Films" for La Révue du Cinéma in November of 1946. That title alone should make it obvious that the term existed before WWII. Charles O’Brien who researched the use of “film noir” before the war in "Film Noir In France: Before The Liberation" documented how that term was used in the newspapers and magazines of Paris during the 1930s.
"The film noirs considered part of the poetic realism movement have a visual style that would influence the American crime film made both during and after the war with “Port of Shadows” being the most obvious example, the other films are made in different styles. The remaining films – “Hôtel du Nord” and “Le Dernier Tournant” – are filmed in a more conventional style although the content contains murder or suicide and the other social taboos that are a mainstay of the film noirs.
None of these films are about private detectives hard-boiled or otherwise and none of them are police procedurals or stories where the police – or any member of governmental society – are seen as heroic. The films are about the working class and those below the working class or, in a few films, what was once referred to as the Lumpenproletariat. In fact, there isn’t a single crime film – as that term is conventionally used – in the list. “Pépé Le Moko,” a film that centers on a fugitive criminal hiding in the Casbah of Algiers, is a film about memory and desire more than anything else and its suicide ending has to do with facing what the character believes he has lost and not the possibility of incarceration." (William Ahern)
This film, like Chair de poule reviewed here recently, is another Spaghetti Western-ish Film Soleil Noir, and a Road Movie. The engaging cinematography of the Euro Western locations used to depict Mexico contribute greatly to that ambience. Think of this Noir as a combo of The Postman Always Rings Twice, Detour, Chair de poule, Twilight Zone, Inferno, Zabriskie Point, From Here To Eternity, This World, Then The Fireworks with even a dash of an old farmers daughter joke.
The tale
Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Howling wind. A downpour. A real soaker.
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A woman runs out into the rain and again yells "Rocky." The Fairlane splashes through a standing puddle and out onto the highway becoming a yellow blur that fades out slowly into the deluge. He's split.
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A dump truck tops a hill. The man flags it down. He hops in, and he gets a ride into Salina. This all taking place during the title sequence.
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In Salina, he jumps out of the cab of the truck and runs into the Policia Judicial building and up to the Policia Municipal Comandante's office. There he tells The Comandante his name is Jonas Armstrong and it's never been Rocky Salerno.
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| Robert Walker as Jonas |
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| David Sachs as the Comandante |
We cut to the Comandante taking Jonas back to the scene of the incident, and as they are driving, in a nicely stylish flashback sequence that is punctuated to the thump of the wipers, we start the flashback.
The Flashback
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| The Canary Islands landscape filling in for Mexico |
He's on his way to Salina. Now he's hoofing it up a grade. He's just toped a hill. Thirsty. He spots Salerno's a filling station / roadhouse. It sits in a small oasis of shade trees surrounded by fields of half-moon shaped, stone, grape bunds.
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| stone grape vine bunds in the fields |
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| Salerno's |
He walks past the gas pump, up towards the back of the white washed roadhouse. He's looking for water. He passes through a patio area. He spots a well pump handle and start's to soaks his head. Mara Salerno, a fifty-ish older woman, spots Jonas through the window lattice and watches him at the well.
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Mara comes on out, and she mistakes Jonas for her four year long missing son Rocky. Jonas can't believe he looks that close to her son, he thinks she's a bit nuts, but he's tired and hungry and well, why not. Life is Good.
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| Rita Hayworth as Mara Salerno |
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But we, as the finely tuned Aficio-Noir-do and Noir-ista audience that we have become, can also contemplate other possibilities, if, say this is an amnesia angle, maybe Jonas is Rocky and he just don't remember. Or like in Twilight Zone's Dead Man's Shoes is Rocky' spirit occupying Jonas and has come back?
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Mara brings him into the building and shows Jonas / Rocky that she kept his room just as he left it. Jonas flops down on the bed and immediately falls deeply asleep.
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Later when a neighbor, Warren stops by, Jonas figures the jig is up as soon as he sets the old lady straight. But Warren greets him also as Rocky also. WTF? Are we in The Twilight Zone?
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| Warren Arrives |
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| Panicked |
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| Ed Begley as Warren |
Jonas figures WTF, right, nothing to loose so decides to just play along and milk it as long as he can.
The bright prospect of how long he can away with it dims when a yellow 1958 Ford Fairlane Convertible appears in the far distance headed down the road towards the roadhouse. It's Billie, Rocky's beautiful sister blonde who drives up to Salerno's and parks.
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| more half-moon shaped, stone, grape vine bunds |
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| Yellow 1958 Ford Fairlane |
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| Mimsy Farmer as Billie Salerno |
But she also greets Jonas as Rocky. We and Jonas are now thinking maybe it's all a dream or maybe they are all humoring Mara. So again Jonas figures well, I just keep stringing it along.
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| Hi Rocky! |
But stringing it along gets harder because things do twist even weirder. Billie starts coming on to Jonas. Jonas, naturally takes it as mutual attraction. Billie takes Jonas / Rocky into Salina where they pickup some food supplies for the roadhouse.
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| Heading to Salina |
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| Shopping |
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| Do you remember this beach? |
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| Yes |
Billie says well then lets to go swimming. Billie gets out of the Fairlane. Jonas / Rocky answers that he didn't bring his suit, Billie counters with that's never stopped us before and begins to strip. Life just got good-er.
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They start having afternoon siestas together. Then start playing hide the sausage. Mamma Mara of course starts to notice. Mamma Mara starts to spy. Mamma Mara declares to them that it's happening again. Even Warren notices them together on the beach. But Warren, in a conversation with Jonas / Rocky mentions to him Rocky's girlfriend Linda a barmaid in Salina.
Jonas is now in amateur detective mode, is consumed with the idea of seeing Linda to find out if she too is going to recognize him as this Rocky. It all goes Noirsville when Jonas finds out that indeed Linda doesn't recognize him at all, that Billie and her brother Rocky were really bro and sis with benefits (How Noir is that? ) and what really happened to Rocky.
Noirsville
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If you are tuned into Visual Noir Style, this film will pull you right into its vortex easily. The volcanic plains of the Spanish Canary Islands off Africa (standing in for Mexico) looks at times like the middle ground between light and shadow," right out of the Twilight Zone. It's such a wonderfully woven Dark twisted story of very believable family in dysfunction that you just can't turn away. The cinematography, music, and acting are flawless. The film was originally shot in English. I watched what was available an English subtitled version, all the actors like in countless Spaghetti Westerns were dubbed into French in post. It is a French - Italian Euro Noir with American Actors from both hemispheres. Its a kinky Noir movie for adults that is done with a lot of artistry and class.
Bravo! 10/10
Review from Criminal Element
A Curious Lost Classic of Cinema: Road to Salina (1970)
BY BRIAN GREENE here
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