Jacques Becker (1952)

The title refers to a hairstyle and the young woman who wears it.  We first see ‘golden helmet’ Marie (Simone Signoret) as one of a boating party.  There are three rowboats.  Among the women in them, Marie is the only one rowing; the others are passengers of the men in the party.  While the latter are mooring the boats, the girls run to the outdoor bar-café the party is heading for; this race is Marie’s idea and she wins it easily.  The women are all gigolettes – ‘whores’, according to a disapproving matron who observes their noisy, excited arrival at the café – but it’s immediately clear that Marie is different from the rest – distinctively beautiful, an ardent free spirit, not subservient to her male partner.  The men are professional criminals.  Marie offends her preening, abusive boyfriend Roland (William Sabatier) when she dances at the café with another young man, introduced to her by one of the older crooks, the genial Raymond (Raymond Bussières).  The quiet, modest stranger is Georges Manda (Serge Reggiani), who once did time in jail with Raymond but is now going straight, working as a carpenter.  Roland goads Manda into flooring him with a punch and vows prophetically that ‘You’ve not heard the last of this’.  Marie and Manda continue to see each other in the days that follow.  Watched by other members of the crime syndicate, Roland confronts Manda.  In the scuffle that follows, Manda, in self-defence, kills his rival.

The setting of Jacques Becker’s film is Paris and its environs – Belleville, Joinville and the surrounding countryside – during the Belle Époque.  After killing Roland, Manda quickly gives up his job and goes on the run.  Marie lures him to a rural rendezvous, where they continue their affair.  The place is idyllic and the weather perfect but the romance is inevitably ill fated.  The knowledge of what’s coming is, for me, a limitation of Casque d’or, which Becker wrote with Jacques Companéez.  The predetermined doom of the piece made this viewer feel trapped in a particular genre of underworld romantic tragedy rather than sympathetic towards the lovers also ensnared.  You not only know the story will end with Manda’s paying the ultimate price; you also have a good idea of what intervening deaths will occur.  The copain Raymond, framed for Roland’s murder until the honourable Manda learns of this and hands himself in, is fatally shot by the police when he and Manda try to escape, in a diversion arranged by Marie, while being transported from one jail to another.  The only consolation in the story is no less predictable:  Manda, also using a police gun, gives Félix Leca (Claude Dauphin), the boss of the crime syndicate, his just desserts.  Leca shows a lot more concern for brushing his suits clean than he does for other human beings.  It struck me that his nasty dandy quality was rather too similar to Roland’s, although this may have been Becker’s intention.

Nevertheless, Casque d’or is a strong, rhythmical drama, and well acted all round.  Simone Signoret’s luminous toughness is beautifully modified as Marie falls in love with Manda.  Serge Reggiani’s melancholy underdog quality complements Signoret’s charismatic sensuality.  The love scenes between the two of them are understated, gentle and appealing.  Because Reggiani is such a pacific presence, the desperate force with which Manda shoots Leca is startling. Signoret’s final movement is very effective – as she watches Manda being guillotined, Marie lowers her own head as if she’s been executed too.    Every part in the film is cast with exceptional care for getting just the right look.  This is most obvious perhaps when Marie and Manda enter a church to watch a wedding going on there.  The choristers and the organist, although glimpsed very briefly, register strongly; the bride and groom have stepped straight out of a wedding photograph of the period.  The abundance of extraordinary faces is sometimes a little too much – they seem to be competing for the camera’s attention – but the best character actors in Casque d’or are so good that you hardly mind.  They include Odette Barencey as Ma Eugène, who owns the smallholding where the lovers stay for their short happy time together, and the splendid Gaston Modot, as the old carpenter Danard.

7 March 2017