The Beasts Of Marseilles (1957)

[Mr. Arkadin]

Anybody seen this one? I was thinking of recording it tonight, but there is another film coming on at the same time, so I need to make a choice. I don't think either film will reshow and both are OOP.

[moira finnie]

Sorry, Ark, I didn't see this note until after I'd just watched Beasts of Marseilles (1957-Hugo Fregonese) or Seven Thunders, as it was known outside the U.S.

It was pretty fascinating, not because of the two leading actors, the very good looking if unfortunately bland Stephen Boyd and Tony Wright, who were okay as two escaped POWs in the increasingly less tolerant atmosphere of Marseilles in '43. The pair were desperately searching for a way out of the city as the German noose tightened around France, with the help of the collaborationist Vichy. The real stars of this movie may have been the excellent pace of the movie, the vividness of the setting, the black and white cinematography and the great character actors in the movie. Among these were James Robertson Justice (as a murderous doctor), Kathleen Harrison as Mme. Abou, an aged, sprightly prostitute, (who always reminds me of a Cockney Thelma Ritter). Two others whose distinctive faces may seem familiar, even if their names are not, were the excellent Eugene Deckers and Rosalie Crutchley as a French couple whose life is transformed by the Nazis. If you are a fan of British movies from the '30s through the 50s, you know all these unsung actors by sight, who enlivened just about every movie they were in during this period.


The other great character actor on hand in this movie was the city of Marseilles, where the movie was shot. In real life, the neighborhood recreated in this film was the setting for the Nazis idea of urban renewal. In 1943, to prevent the uncontrollable denizens of the narrow, hidden streets of the Old Port area from following their "criminal" proclivities (which included resisting Nazis, hiding Jews as well as pursuing their traditional illegal professions as thieves, forgers, blackmarketeers, streetwalkers, etc.), they gave 30,000 residents in this one neighborhood a set time to clear out, (the movie showed it as two hours, though reality seems to indicate that it was more time than that, especially since the Germans and Vichy police searched the buildings beforehand), after which the military blew up 1500 buildings. The chaos that ensued was well documented in this fictional movie, which was the background for the Brits' frantic efforts to escape from this trap in a small fishing boat down at the harbor. There was a heap of derring-do kept on a human scale, with some beautiful cinematography thanks to Wilkie Cooper,the f/x man Bill Warrington, and others, utilizing what looks like actual footage of this little known event. The only jarring technical moment were a few seconds when the gamine heroine (Anna Gaylor) was very poorly backdropped by a disintegrating building.

Speaking of obscure history, Hugo Fregonese, the Argentinian born director of this movie, was also responsible for what I suspect is the only movie ever made about the invasion of Vermont by the Confederacy, The Raid (1954), which was written about here on this site.

[Ollie]

Ark, I've got a copy of SEVEN THUNDERS from an earlier TCM broadcast, just in case.

[Mr. Arkadin]

Thanks guys. Moira, I was recording the other film you spoke highly of, Drango. I meant to catch it on the afternoon showing, but I got home late. Little did I know you would be up on the other film as well!

[markfp]

This was a nice little surprise for me. I had never seen it and knew little more about it than it starred Stephen Boyd. I really enjoyed the film, especially the James Robertson Justice character. I'm glad I recorded it and even more so that I watched it instead of putting it on my ever growing "to view someday" pile.

Can anybody explain the original title SEVEN THUNDERS? Was there something I didn't pick up on?

[moira finnie]

This was a nice little surprise for me. I had never seen it and knew little more about it than it starred Stephen Boyd. I really enjoyed the film, especially the James Robertson Justice character. I'm glad I recorded it and even more so that I watched it instead of putting it on my ever growing "to view someday" pile.

Can anybody explain the original title SEVEN THUNDERS? Was there something I didn't pick up on?

I didn't hear any direct explanation of the European title of this movie during the film, (Beasts of Marseilles didn't really seem to fit either, though I guess it referred to the doctor and the Nazis), but I believe it alludes to the explosions in the Old Port and is drawn directly from the Bible's apocalyptic chapter in the New Testament Book of Revelation verses 10:3 and 10:4, which describe possible end times for humanity...

10:3
And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
10: 4
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

This is also the section of the bible from which Ingmar Bergman drew his title for the great movie The Seventh Seal (1957) that was released in the same year as Seven Thunders. Do you think that my suspicion that the filmmakers of the Stephen Boyd movie hoped to ride Bergman's critical coat tails to the box office by deliberately entitling their little movie with a very similar name could be right? Or am I just being cynical?

The Seventh Seal reference from Revelation 8:1
And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

[markfp]

Hi Moira,
Wow! Thanks for your thoughts on the original title. I would have never connected it with scripture (I must have been absent when they covered that in religion class) or THE SEVENTH SEAL. I've seen other films titled for similar reasons so maybe it was so.

As for the American title THE BEASTS OF MARSEILLES, I have to agree with you that it really doesn't fit the film. From what I've read, it's true that the Nazis were referred to as "The Beasts of Marseilles", but the way I see it the story isn't really about them, it's more about the people who are trying to get out with the Nazis becoming secondary characters. However, I've done a little research and have figured that title out.

Around 1959 or 1960 a small American film distributor (so small I can't find the name) released two retitled British war films as an "exploitation"( you know, war atrocities, etc.) double-bill, for drive-ins. The films were SEVEN THUNDERS and A TOWN CALLED ALICE, which even I have to admit had titles that would not have appealed to the drive-in crowd. So they became THE BEASTS OF MARSEILLES and THE RAPE OF MALAYA. Both of these films were good solid productions and really deserved better than this. It appears that A TOWN CALLED ALICE actually did a have a limited U.S. release in 1958, mainly in art theaters in a few major cities, but was apparently soon forgotten. Too bad.

And as good old Paul Harvey use to say..."and now you know the rest of the story."

Mark