Paris Pick-Up (1962) User Reviews

Silent night,deadly night.

[dbdumonteil · 8/10 · 12 May 2002]

On a Christmas night, all doesn't seem to be calm and bright.An ex-convict ,Robert Herbin,(Robert Hossein) meets a beautiful Italian married woman Marthe Drévet ,who has got a lot of things to hide and it's the beginning of a film noir,with a lot of suspense and unexpected twists ,unfairly ignored nowadays.

The screenwriter was adapted from a Frederic Dard 's novel,famous in France for his "San Antonio " series -not for every taste-,but who also wrote murder mysteries as compelling as these of Boileau-Narcejac (les diaboliques,Vertigo)Robert Hossein had already adapted his "toi le venin" for the screen,and it seems that he is ,much more than Marcel Bluwal,essentially a TV director,the main auteur of the film.

The action takes place in an old house ,the first floor of which is a big workshop.A dark , threatening house,where a service elevator(monte-charge)leads to the flat.Marthe takes Robert to her home for a drink;he puts a small bird he bought on the Xmas tree,and they go for a stroll in the streets;when they come back,there's a dead body in the room(the hubby) and most extraordinary thing,the bird has disappeared.And that's only the beginning!The scenes outside the house show Clouzot's and Duvivier's influence,but also Dard's misanthropy:all through the streets,on that Xmas night,there's nothing really divine:except from the very beginning,when a gendarme buys a plane for his child,all we see is people arguing or fighting.And it's during the midnight mass,when a singer breaks into "minuit chrétiens" (o holy night),that the two heroes meet a despicable bourgeois(Maurice Biraud) puffed up with smugness and vulgarity.

A lot of surprises are in store for the audience and I wonder why they've never thought of a remake:the screenplay is strong enough to stand the test of time.The performances (Hossein,Biraud and Léa Massari) are first-rate.

Clever and moody French noir

[Red-Barracuda · 7/10 · 30 May 2017]

This is a film which I had not even heard of before a kind fellow IMDb user sent me a copy. It fits under the neo-noir bracket; more specifically it's an example of French noir, of which there seemed to be quite a few released in the 1960's. Its story follows an ex-convict who has just been released from prison; he has a chance encounter with a married Italian woman who invites him back to her flat. Later they go back out drinking but when they return they discover the body of the woman's husband in the apartment, murdered. In typical noir fashion, there are a few surprises yet around the corner.

This moody Gallic thriller takes place over the course of one winter night in Paris. Christmas festivities form a backdrop to events but there is little holiday cheer to be found in the story, although a key clue to the mysterious goings on ties in with a seemingly irrelevant Christmas item. That, along with the significant role played by the elevator that services the warehouse like apartment building where most of the key action takes place, forms the bones of the clever narrative. There is a nice gloomy atmosphere to this one which helps create an effective mood, while the twist in the story really is quite unusual and smart. It ensures that this one dovetails into a very satisfying ending and makes you want to watch the movie again to see it unfold with the benefit of foreknowledge.

Finely Crafted Noir Thriller

[mackjay2 · 8/10 · 9 May 2011]

Lea Massari makes a memorable femme-fatale in this Hitchcockian venture into nocturnal suspense. "Le Monte-Charge" (Literally, Service Elevator) is a dark, little-known gem of late-period Film Noir. Irony plays a major role right from the start, as Robert (excellent Robert Hossein) returns from prison on Christmas Eve. All he finds is a lonely Paris neighborhood, with people rushing around the streets, shopping and chattering. His mother had died while he was in prison, and her dark apartment is a depressing place to be. Solitary Robert dines alone, but by chance he meets an attractive woman, Marthe (Massari) and her little girl. Eventually, Robert ends up in the woman's apartment, but things don't go quite as he expected. This elevator makes some mysterious and extremely intriguing stops along the way, and it would be unacceptable to spoil any of them. Director Bluwal shows influence of Hitchcock and of some masters of French crime drama, with atmospheric camera work and in particular the use of sound effects. The actors are fully inside their roles. Besides the fine leads, there is Maurice Biraud, very good as Mr. Ferry. Georges Delerue provided a score that is a classic of his particular kind: sparingly used and melancholy. Much of the story is set in a large factory building that contains a private apartment, but Bluwal makes great use of Paris exteriors as well (not the typical, romantic ones, but the quartiers inhabited by ordinary working people). Not just another disposable thriller, this is a meticulously crafted film of startling surprises, revelations and numerous cinematic pleasures.

a stunning mirage of despair ....

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 10/10 · 4 September 2015]

"Le Monte-Charge" is a hell of hidden treasure in french film noir. And it's the best opus in the Frederic Dard-Robert Hossein cooperation. How can such a nugget be forgotten for so long time? At last, it's available on DVD and blue-ray. Maybe french films noirs need a complete encyclopedia so we can discover such gems.

"Le Monte-Charge" offers us a real noir crime drama with a diabolical machination. Without telling the story (already told by the other reviewers), the result is an amazing and insane atmosphere, sharply photographed by not so unknown André Bac ("Le Jour Se Lève") with dazzling views by night. A lot of very strong surprises all through the movie. I was stuck in front of this mirage of despair.

The main city where the movie is shot is Asnières (next to the station street with the cinema Alcazar).

If you love old fine french noir movies with old settings (french restaurants, cars, stores... ), jump on it and enjoy, you will place your disc next to "Les Diaboliques" by Clouzot.

Christmas comes once a year and I don't want to spoil it.

[hitchcockthelegend · 9/10 · 27 December 2014]

For some time now those film lovers who have a kink for film noir have debated about years – the beginning and ending of this most wonderful style of film making. Rarely is French film noir taken into consideration, daft really since some quite superb French noir can be found in the 1960s, as America tailed off towards the back end of the 50s with their fascination for noir, some French film makers picked up the torch and kept it alight.

Le monte-charge (1962) (The Lift/The Hoist/The Elevator…) is a fine exponent of Frenchie noir. Directed by Marcel Bluwal and co-written by Bluwal with Frederic Dard, story pitches Robert Herbin (Robert Hossein) into a murky Hitchcockian labyrinth among the back streets of Argenteuil. Herbin has just served 7 years in prison and is in town breaking his parole requirements out of genuine necessity. Quickly becoming enamoured with Martha Dravet (Lea Massari), whom he meets in a café, Herbin is spun into a sexually tinged game of cat and mouse with the sultry siren.

A she-wolf in cat-skin clothing?

Pic begins in deathly silence as Herbin moves about the shadow bathed buildings and moist glistening streets, from the off you know we are in noirville. He adorns a trench coat while she is attired in a wild cat skinned coat, noir dude and femme fatale in full effect! She has a child in tow as well, who is quickly dispatched to the apartment bedroom, left to sleep as Herbin and Dravet indulge in sexual frustrations, heartache yearnings and desperations. They often leave the apartment, toing and froing between noir tinted locales, the caged elevator the slow moving MacGuffin a focal point of some considerably visual power and plot importance.

Then a body turns up, or does it? It's murky out there, she's fraught, he's confused, and when another man enters the fray, it gets messy and the crafty plot begins to unravel. Leading to a finale that doesn't disappoint the noir faithful. Bluwal and his cinematographer, Andre Bac, gleefully indulge in the staples of noir, with high-angled shots and a ream of murky exterior sequences. The script is a doozy, full of sexual energy, brought to life by the excellent Hossein and Massari, while Georges Delerue's musical score is perfectly pitched amongst the tonal flows of the narrative.

Crimble Eve film noir, Gallic style. Splendid. 9/10

"A place for everything,everything in its place."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 10/10 · 14 May 2016]

Feb 2015:

With a fellow IMDber having praised the movie highly,I decided that after seeing Michèle Mercier in the satirical Comedy Roaring Years (1962-also reviewed) that I would watch this X-Mas Noir.In the last 10 mins of Years,my DVD player started to make weird sounds and blew up!

June 2015:

After eventually getting hold of a replacement TV,I decided to play this French Noir,only to find that my small TV screen cut all of the subtitles off!

Friday the 13th of May 2016:

Finally upgrading to a flat screen TV,and deciding to watch 100 French films over 100 days (and also having a re-filling done!),I felt that it was the perfect time to see if this would be the lucky day where I would finally watch the film!

View on the film:

Following the hustle and bustle of last minute X-Mas shopping,co- writer/(along with Frédéric Dard) director Marcel Bluwal & cinematographer André Bac bring the Christmas lights into the Film Noir shade,with frosting windows giving Herbin's return a chilly atmosphere.

Lighting up the Christmas lights with fire, Bluwal and Bac display a quality attention to detail,where major clues to Dravet's husband's death/her missing daughter are spread in stylish whip-pans which allows the viewer to pick up lingering clues from the corner of their eyes.

Coming back to town, Bluwal breaks Herbin from experiencing any Christmas cheer,by casting a cold industrial Film Noir shadow over him,where shadows of death drape any place he enters,and the only light Herbin sees being from a lift to the gallows.

Smartly spending the opening 30 mins setting the Christmas Noir nativity scene,the screenplay by Bluwal & Dard play a tremendous sleight of hand,as Herbin and Dravet brittle Noir exchanges cast a mood of impending doom across the X-Mas good wishes.

Unwrapping Herbin's past,the writers superbly open up the true faces of the characters,as jolly Herbin shows the blood on his hands,and the playful Dravet reveals the femme fatale stepping out of the shadows.

Desperately trying to get into the spirit of the season, Robert Hossein gives an excellent performance as Herbin,whose attempts to keep his full past hidden leads to Hossein keeping things close to his chest, until Herbin's desire for Dravet leads to Hossein uncovering the Film Noir loner standing in the blood-drenched snow.

Secretly holding Herbin's hands in the cinema,the elegant Lea Massari (whose Italian background is joked about in the movie) gives a marvellous performance as Dravet,thanks to Dravet establishing a Christmassy warmth with Herbin when they first meet,which Massari chips away at with wonderful iced femme fatale heels,as Herbin discovers that It's a Wonderful (Film Noir) Life.