La main du diable

Plot synopsis:
The guests at an isolated hotel cut off by an avalanche are surprised when Roland Brissot, a man missing his left hand, shows up, carrying only a small casket. He asks the innkeeper if there is a cemetery adjoining the ruins of a nearby abbey and is disappointed when the answer is no. Then two shots ring out. The police arrive, looking for a little man carrying a coffin. The news frightens Brissot. While he is called to the telephone, his casket is stolen during a temporary blackout. Disconsolate, he gives in to the curiosity of the other guests and tells his story. A flashback ensues.
Brissot is a struggling, untalented painter in Paris. He persuades Irène, an attractive glove shop saleswoman, to pose for him. One night, frustrated with his lack of drive, she breaks up with him at a cafe. Mélisse, the chef, comes over and offers him a solution for all his woes: a talisman that will give him everything he wants, for the price of one sou (penny). Ange (Angel) warns him not to buy it, and the chef reveals that he must sell it at a loss before he dies or he will be condemned to Hell forever. The talisman turns out to be a severed left hand, which amazingly obeys the chef's commands. Despite all this, Brissot does not believe the supernatural aspects and buys it. As soon as the bargain is concluded, the chef loses his left hand.
The talisman works. Exactly one year later, Brissot has a wildly successful exhibition at Galerie Gabelin and is married to Irène. For some reason he himself does not understand, he paints with his left hand only and signs his works "Maximum Leo". At the exhibition, he spots a little man he has seen before. He chases after him, but then notices in a florist shop window a wreath with the sash that says "In Memoriam Maximum Leo". Inside, he learns that a little man ordered it. Later the little man comes to his office and admits Brissot has "the Devil to pay". Even though Brissot cannot sell the hand at a loss, the little man offers to buy it back for a sou. Brissot accepts, but then takes it back after Irène is cold to him. The little man tells him that his offer still holds, but the price doubles every day. Brissot dithers until the 23rd day, but when he tries to pay the current price, he does not have quite enough money. Later, Irène telephones, telling him she has the money he needs, but is murdered before he can get to her. Ange tells him to try a roulette system at the casino in Monte Carlo, but the little man shows up, and his lucky streak ends just before he can win the sum he needs.
When he returns to his hotel, he is met by all the previous owners of the hand: a royal musketeer, a cutpurse, a juggler, an illusionist, a surgeon, his assistant (who became a boxer), and finally the chef. They tell him their tales. The little man appears, followed by the man to whom the hand belongs. Maximus Leo was born in 1422. His hand was supremely gifted, but he chose to become a monk. The little man was only able to obtain the hand by stealing it from the monk's tomb. Therefore, as Maximus Leo states, all the bargains are invalid, since the little man cannot sell what does not rightfully belong to him. After the defeated little man leaves, Maximus Leo asks Brissot to return the hand to his tomb.
Returning to the present, Brissot spots the little man outside and gives chase. They fight atop the ruins of the abbey, and Brissot is sent tumbling to his death. He lands on top of a tomb. The casket is found empty nearby, and the tomb's inscription reads "Maximum Leo".

Tags: paranormal

Review:
Excellent Horror Film Needs More Attention.
Carnival of Sinners (1943) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Excellent French horror film from director Maurice Tourneur about a talentless painter (Pierre Fresnay) who is given the opportunity to buy a mysterious chest and with it a certain power that will bring greatness and fame.
It doesn't take long for the painter to realize that he's actually sold his soul to the Devil and he must try and find a way to get it back.
I had never heard of this film until it recently was shown on Turner Classic Movies and afterwards I really couldn't wait to tell others about it.
It's really hard to believe that this movie isn't better known because it's certainly one of the best horror films from this period that manages to hold up extremely well and it remains quite creepy.
The story of one's soul being sold isn't exactly original but director Tourneur does a masterful job at showing how one could go crazy trying to figure out a way to gain his soul back.
I really loved the way the film drew you into the greatness that would come with fame and riches and it also did a great job at showing how difficult it would be to give this stuff up.
The film is quite thoughtful in the way it shows the highs and lows of this mysterious box and the finale is just downright chilling to watch.
Fresnay is terrific in his role, which requires him to act out various emotions throughout the picture.
I thought the actor did a fantastic job and especially during the scenes where he begins to realize the mistake he's made.
The film has some wonderful cinematography and the use of shadows is quite impressive.
CARNIVAL OF SINNERS shows what a talented director can do to a familiar story and in the end this here is certainly one of the better films of the genre and deserves much more attention..
A Date with the Devil.
A few years ago I was attracted to the work of French filmmaker Maurice Tourneur, after reading his IMDb profile.
I already knew that his film «La main du diable» had a cult following, and that he was the father of Jacques Tourneur, the famous director of «Cat People», «I Walked with a Zombie» and «Out of the Past»; but I had no idea of his own prestige and importance in the history of cinema.
During the silent film period, Maurice Tourneur was as popular as David W.
Griffith and Thomas Harper Ince in Hollywood, and his movies had a strong influence due to their visual design refinement.
I am yet to see his version of James Fenimore Cooper's «Last of the Mohicans» (1920), selected to the National Film Registry by the US Congress, but I have already seen his adaptations of Maurice Maeterlinck's «The Blue Bird» (also selected to the National Film Registry), and Joseph Conrad's «Victory» (1919).
I have just finished watching «La main du diable», a French production made during the last stage of his career, when Tourneur returned to France, tired of the commercialism of the Hollywood films.
Connections are often made between Nazi occupation in France and certain films that are or seem to be allegories of this state, as Carné's «Les visiteurs du soir» (1942), or Clouzot's «Le corbeau» (1943), so I would not be surprised if there is an essay linking «La main du diable» to Nazi presence in French territory.
If it's true that this reading is possible, the film is fascinating if one takes it as it is, a moral tale with elements of fantasy and subtle horror: in an Alpine hotel, the dull confinement of a group of travelers that are trapped by an avalanche, brightens up with the sudden arrival of a nervous man, with a stump and a small box under his arm.
After the box is stolen during a blackout, the travelers become a captive audience (as we, the spectators), listening to the man as he tell his story, from being a luckless painter, to buying a sinister talisman that brings him fame, love and fortune, and being cheated by the devil.
The story of course is similar to other cinematic pacts with the devil, as those made by Faust, the Prague student, Jabez Stone in «The Devil and Daniel Webster», the phantom of the Paradise, the investigator in «Angel Heart» or the young lawyer in «The Devil's Advocate», among others.
But Tourneur, as Murnau in his «Faust», fascinates us with his visual reading of Gérard Nerval's novel, and creates a glowing monochromatic world of oblique lines, shadows, masks, and an affable little devil, played by a smiling old man who, behind the appearance of a helpless civil servant, hides his treacherous essence.
The film is a well-mounted clockwork that reaches its expected conclusion with the same punctuality the devil demands of his creditors.
If by chance it crosses your path, don't miss «La main du diable», a work that only asks for 78 minutes of your time..
One more soul for the devil..
How many movies feature a character who sells his soul to the devil?Since "Faust",a lot!From "la beauté du diable" (René Clair,1949) to "Rosemary's baby"(Polanski,1968),from "Angel Heart" (Alan Parker,1987)to "the devil's advocate"(1997) and "the seventh gate" (Polanski again,1999).And it's far from being over.."La main du diable " is one of the best.Maurice Tourneur constantly creates strange atmospheres:first,in an isolated inn,where,during the dinner,the lights go out.Then the hero ,Roland (Pierre Fresnay) begins to tell his tale during a very long flashback:he was a poor artist whose paintings did not sell,and one day he bought a mysterious hand ,a talisman:it's an overnight triumph.But who is this little man,always harassing him?Did Roland gain the world and lose his soul?To reveal more would be a spoiler:I want to point out a marvelous scene,one of the strongest of the fantastic cinema:he invokes all the former owners of the hand.They all appear together,masked,in front of a long table.They are a very long chain in space and in time:this innovative sequence might have influenced Mickael Powell and Eric Pressburger for "a matter of life and death"(stairway to heaven)(1946)Like father,like son:Maurice's son Jacques (Jack) will be also a master of fear,as "cat people" (1942,avoid the remake!)testifies..
A well done, very imaginative story, variations of which have been done many times, but not with the style and touch of a Tourneur.
Both father and son had made quality pictures enriching the lives of moviegoers for decades, and here is another.
Jumping ahead a few years for a comparison, "Carnival Of Sinners" is like a feature-length 'Twilight Zone' TV show, but you would have to see this picture to appreciate how far superior it is.Brissot(Pierre Fresnay) is a painter unsuccessful in most everything he attempts - until he buys a 'talisman', a hand in a box from someone glad to get rid of it.
Of course, the hand is cursed.
The film starts at the end as he is relating his tale to a group at a mountain resort, and from thereon the story is as gripping as it is bizarre, and there is no letup.
I don't summarize movie plots in reviews (I leave that to all other contributors), but this picture is an edge-of-your-seat story throughout its 78 minutes, which fly by.Very surprising to think that there are only 5 other reviews and only 394 ratings for such a terrific picture.
I am always delighted when I can see a great movie I hadn't seen before - and done with such style and competence.
But with the Tourneur name on it I should have expected same..
a real classic.
A desperate man escapes into a crowded inn in the French Alps and tells the hungry guests his story which the movie reveals as an extended flashback to his days in Paris as a failing artist who seemingly sells his soul to the devil to gain a mysterious left hand (a talisman) from a chef who was only too eager to get rid of it.
Once in possession of the hand, the woman he has courted, who had (appropriately) worked in a shop selling gloves, accepts his marriage proposal after previously cruelly rejecting him as a talentless loser.
Told in a film full of expressionistic sets, the story captures so many significant and fascinating details in the settings and the various characters, everyone of whom plays parts that interweave remarkably well to make up what must be considered a real classic..
Endless agreements with Devil!!!.
A near masterpiece almost forgotten for the past, this french movie made by still obscure to me Jacques Tourner's father, an astonishing dark tale about devil's endless agreements with some people end up with a untalented painter who try everything to pay the Devil without success, told by flashback with utmost wealth of details since the beginning, when you realize this sorrowful Devil's prey there is no future come out an unexpected final, striing example how make a great movie on a tight budge,supported by a perceptive screemplay this gem should be object of study for news filmakers such innovating and stylized story!!!Resume:First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9.5.
Painter Pierre Fresnay (Brissot) arrives at a secluded mountainside hotel that has been cut off by an avalanche.
He carries a box with him and has a rather unpleasant attitude which alienates him from the other guests there.
The police may or may not be on his tail as they arrive to ask about a man they have been chasing.
When his box is stolen by supernatural forces, he decides it is best to come clean and tell his tale.
We are then thrown into a flashback story that explains his life and how he came to have this box, and what its significance is as well as what is inside.
It's a story of selling your soul to the devil and things come to an end at this mountainside hotel.It's a good film that keeps you gripped.
Fresnay is thoroughly dislikable at the beginning of the film but due to his predicament he wins you over and you understand why he is this way.
A small man in a bowler hat, Palau, seems to follow him around.
His appearances keep the tension going as he can change fortune but not necessarily in a good way.
Fresnay has this box that gives him instant success, wealth, love, etc but it comes at a cost.
His love interest is Josseline Gael (Irene) who is pretty straight-talking and whose behaviour also seems influenced by whether or not Fresnay has the box.
Her real life story is interesting as she was married to a member of the French Gestapo and was jailed the following year to this film being made.
She was subsequently stripped of her French citizenship whilst her husband was executed by a firing squad in 1946.An annoyance at the beginning of the film is that everyone speaks too quickly so that you just about have time to read the subtitles let alone look at the picture of the actor's faces speaking the lines at the same time.
You need to accustom yourself to this and then things get OK.
The plot's theme is interesting and there are good sequences including a line-up of masked men, all previous owners of the box, who have a brief tale to tell.
Fresnay's ability comes from painting with his left hand and he signs his name as Maximus Leo. Is this name significant?
Not sure why Fresnay didn't do that.
But, then again, the devil doesn't play fair, so would probably conjure up a bank shortfall on that day.
Maybe the best thing is to just enjoy the success you've got while it lasts.
Fresnay fights back..
Down on his luck and trying to change it, a man acquires a cursed hand said to accomplish that and finds it to come true, only for the devilish owner of the hand to appear to him looking to collect on the final aspect of the deal.Overall, this was a very puzzling effort as there's some great stuff here and some really troubling stuff.
The troubling stuff is off to a start right away, as the main gimmick of this is that it's supposed to be the lead recounting his story to the group in a remote mountain lodge, yet it takes a good while to start off the story-telling which really throws the pacing to this one all over the place.
Rather than be introduced to everything quite quickly, the dragged-out pace early on makes the first half seem quite overlong as it sets up his new lifestyle change and the resulting situations that spring from that.
After that, it gets a lot better when the Satanic angle finally gets played and that sets off a lot of good stuff, from being tormented by the ever-increasing amount needed to end it all to the string of luck that comes to an end through his meddling is all in good fun, and when that gets to the finale with the assembled owners in masks recounting their fates, it's when this one really gets going and delivers some fun.
All in all, it's problematic but not too bad.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence..
made this made mostly silent films.
Undoubtedly an interesting film from Maurice Tourneur and made the same year his son was in the US making Cat People.
The father about 70 when he made this made mostly silent films, the sound ones coming in his later years and to make things more difficult this would have been in occupied France.
For me it seems too arch, his style clearly rooted in the silent era there is a tendency for slow methodical explanation and a certain amount of repetition.
In an otherwise amazing scene towards the end, we see the chain of people that have been involved in the deals with the devil and it seems incredible today that we would have to go through every single one's story.
All the subtlety of his son's film making is missing here and whilst as I say it is interesting to see it can seem like a long 80 minutes..
Devil's Claw.
Trivia buffs may like to note that even as Maurice Tourneur was shooting this Gothic tale for Continental in Paris his son Jacques was shooting Cat People in Hollywood.
This is a very superior piece of Gothic if anybody asks you; it bows to convention insofar as in a lonely inn subject to power failure a stranger narrates the story of how he, as a struggling artist was persuaded to 'buy' for peanuts a 'talisman' in the shape of a severed human left hand from a restauranteur.
Of course his fortunes did improve dramatically and equally inevitably the piper came round one day to collect the payment for calling the tune.
In a masterstroke the 'devil' takes the shape of a Caspar Milquetoast, a bowler-hatted bailiff who informs our hero that the 'price' doubles every day he keeps the hand.
Naturally his mistress chooses that moment to take it on the Jesse Owens with his savings leaving him to face a mounting bill.
In a second masterstroke the artist (Pierre Fresnay) comes face to face with previous 'owners' of the hand, beginning with a monk who declined to use his artistic talent for the good of God. Our artist finds that he must stump up - if you'll forgive the expression - the collective tab for all of these previous owners.
Made under German occupation it would not have been hard in 1943 to locate a hidden 'message' here but sixty years on it still works as a psychological horror story.
Since having enjoyed seeing his splendid Valley of Hell which I watched with 5 other films that were affected by the Occupation of France,I decided that when watching 100 French films over 100 days that one of them would be from auteur film maker Maurice Tourneur.Talking to a fellow IMDber about Valley,I was caught by surprise,when this very kind IMDber gave me a chance to view another Tourneur title,which led to me getting ready to shake the devils hand.The plot:Hit by an avalanche,the guests find themselves stuck in the hotel.Walking out of the snow, Roland Brissot enters the hotel and asks for a room.
Spotting Brissot go to the room,his fellow guests notice that he's lost his left hand,and is also carrying a small coffin.Suddenly,the police run in saying that they are after a little man carrying a coffin.Whilst Brissot takes a call,the lights go out,and Brissot's coffin is stolen.Desperate for help to find the stolen coffin,Brissot decides to reveal to the guests the devilish deal he made with the strange little man.View on the film:Cracking a chopped off left hand over the opening credits (!) director Maurice Tourneur and cinematographer Armand Thirard steam a chilling Gothic Horror atmosphere.
Land locking the hotel, Tourneur explores every corner with refined whip-pans that sink into the darkness.
Offering a quick shock in the opening credits, Tourneur spends the rest of the film brilliantly handling a foreboding mood,where a dazzling use of silhouettes,huge lingering shadows and a gathering which sends Brissot's (played by a superb,worn-down Pierre Fresnay) deal into the fantastically creepy.Made by the Nazi-run Continental Studio,the screenplay by Jean- Paul Le Chanois gets a grip on Gérard de Nerval's novel to deliver strikingly sharp allegorical shots, via making Brissot'a attempts to get out of the deal lead to hyper- inflation which Brissot cannot escape.
Foreshadowing the Gothic final notes with Brissot's artistic hand,Chanois makes Brissot's downfall a devilish delight,with Chanois drowning Brissot with a little devil,a curse hanging over his head,and the most terrifying thing of them all,a pampered diva (played by an icy Josseline Gaël-who got banned from working in movies after joining the French Gestapo) ,as Brissot tries to break the grip of the devils hands.