Reign of Terror

Plot synopsis:
Already the most powerful man in France, Maximilien Robespierre (Richard Basehart) wants to become the nation's dictator. He summons François Barras (Richard Hart), the only man who can nominate him before the National Convention. Barras refuses to do so and goes into hiding.
Meanwhile, patriot Charles D'Aubigny (Robert Cummings) secretly kills and impersonates Duval (Charles Gordon), the bloodstained prosecutor of Strasbourg, who had been summoned to Paris by Robespierre for some unknown purpose (which Robespierre's enemies want very much to ascertain). Neither Robespierre nor Fouché (Arnold Moss), the chief of his secret police, have met Duval before, so the substitution goes undetected. Robespierre informs D'Aubigny that his black book, containing the names of those he intends to denounce and have executed, has been stolen. Robespierre's numerous foes are kept in check by the uncertainty of whether their names are on the list. If they were to learn for certain that they are, they would band together against him. He gives D'Aubigny authority over everyone in France, save himself, and 24 hours to retrieve the book.
D'Aubigny meets Barras (Richard Hart) through his sole contact, Madelon (Arlene Dahl), whom D'Aubigny once loved. However, he was followed, and Barras is arrested by the police, led by Saint-Just. D'Aubigny finds himself in an uncomfortable position, but manages to allay the suspicions of both sides that he has betrayed them.
He goes to visit Barras in prison, and informs him that three of his best men have been murdered. Strangely, their rooms had not been ransacked to search for the book, leading D'Aubigny to surmise that it was never stolen in the first place, and that Robespierre is using the alleged theft to distract his foes. Saint-Just, still suspicious, sends for Duval's wife to identify her husband. Through quick thinking, Madelon pretends to be Madame Duval and extricates her former lover just before the real Madame Duval arrives.
Before news of his impersonation gets out, D'Aubigny returns to Robespierre's private office to look for the book. There he encounters the opportunistic Fouché, who is seemingly willing to sell out his master. When D'Aubigny finds the book, however, Fouché tries to stab him. D'Aubigny strangles him into unconsciousness and escapes.
He and Madelon hide out at the farmhouse of a fellow conspirator, but their location is extracted through torture. A nighttime chase ensues. D'Aubigny gets away, but Madelon is caught, taken back to Paris, and tortured. She refuses to talk.
As the Convention is about to convene the next day, Fouché shows up and offers to trade Madelon for the book. D'Aubigny turns him down. The book is passed from hand to hand among the delegates. Thus, when Robespierre arrives to denounce Barras, the crowd turns on him instead. He nearly brings the mob to heel with his golden words, but Fouché has his henchman shoot Robespierre through the jaw, silencing him. Robespierre is taken to meet Madame Guillotine.
D'Aubigny searches Robespierre's office, finds a secret room, and rescues Madelon. Fouché falls into conversation with an army officer as the crowd celebrates the death of Robespierre. Fouché, about to take leave of the officer, asks his name. The man replies, "Bonaparte. Napoleon Bonaparte." Fouché, unimpressed, still promises to remember the name.

Tags: action, murder

Review:
This exciting and very interesting period drama makes very good use of its setting in the French Revolution, blending history and fiction together in a believable fashion.
The atmosphere is particularly effective, with the dark photography and claustrophobic settings helping to establish the rampant fear, uncertainty, and paranoia that characterized the era.At one time, the French Revolution (and the subsequent Napoleonic era) captivated numerous novelists and film-makers alike, and they could comfortably assume that their readers and audiences were familiar with historical figures like Robespierre, Danton, Barras, and the others of the period.
The story is well-written, combining action, intrigue, and some Hitchcock-like touches with Robespierre's "Black Book", on which the fate of so many lives depends.
Only the lack of a first-rate cast keeps it from being one of the best movies of its time and genre.The best performances come from Arnold Moss, who is excellent as the slippery, conscience- free Fouché, and Arlene Dahl, who is appealing as the ex-lover of Cummings's character, with whom he has to work closely.
The great Anthony Mann takes a film that would probably play mostly as a colorful, sweeping, epic piece dealing with the French revolution and turns it, with the help of cinematographer John Alton, into a dark, shadowy and claustrophobic film noir/adventure/spy/suspense tale period piece featuring excellent performances from a cast that includes Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl.
The great Anthony Mann takes a film that would probably play mostly as a colorful, sweeping, epic piece dealing with the French revolution and turns it, with the help of cinematographer John Alton, into a dark, shadowy and claustrophobic film noir/adventure/spy/suspense tale period piece featuring excellent performances from a cast that includes Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl.
There isn't anything happening in the plot to this little gem that hasn't been seen in at least 6 or 7 other films dealing with this time period.The difference,however,lies in the treatment.The other movies usually paint the protagonists in bold colors,emphasizing their dash,flair,attractiveness,and nobility,while the leaders of the reign of terror are seen as savage,cruel,inhuman,bloodthirsty,and psychotic savages.Well,they still are in this film,but the hero and heroine also show some pretty dark,sinister aspects as well.So,the good guys aren't the kind we're used to seeing.
Out of the chaos and carnage of the French Revolution, Anthony Mann fashions not a sweeping historical epic à la A Tale of Two Cities but a tight and shaded suspense story.
His gifted collaborator is director of photography John Alton, whose preference for the murky suggestively limned with light was never so evident as in his work here, in country inns and the cellars of bakeshops and the cobbled pavements of torchlit Paris.The plot centers on Robespierre (a peruked Richard Basehart), who has embarked on a spree of mock trials and executions of his rivals in preparation to having himself proclaimed dictator; he's just disposed of Danton.
With the aid of proto-Bondgirl Arlene Dahl, Cummings races the clock in a round of near-fatal wild goose chases.Reign of Terror remains a costumed adventure  a chase movie  but Mann paces it swiftly and slyly.
Anthony Mann's THE BLACK BOOK (aka REIGN OF TERROR) is one of its finest examples, a costume thriller set in the French Revolution, and somehow managing to create the visual style and emotional mood of true film noir in a completely atypical setting.This is a film to watch for its cinematic, visual brilliance...
Anthony Mann's taut and claustrophobic work (rather at odds with the usual French Revolution epic, and with Mann's later work in other genuinely epic-scale costume dramas) draws a compelling parallel between the atmosphere of fear in post-revolutionary France and in mid-20th century McCarthyite America..
Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, and Charles McGraw are standouts.Thank goodness for Turner Classic Movies...
But with a few well-placed ornate props, and some smart lighting, creating lots of shadows - the small budget never calls attention to itself.Don't forget, Anthony Mann shot this shortly after the noir classics T-MEN (1947) and RAW DEAL (1948).
A French film, "Danton", deals with his duel to the death with the great moderate and orator (played by Gerard Depardieu), and how Danton warns the country of the dangers of Robespierre's policies and personality but is unable to avoid being proscribed and executed.
Robert Cummings and Arlene Dahl, with a cynical assist from Arnold Moss (as Joseph Fouche, Napoleon's future secret police chief) demolish Robespierre by getting the book into the right hands.
This is the only true 'costume' noir I can recall, but that French term was neither in existence nor even thought about when Anthony Mann was making this film.
Some ill-advised comments have been made here about the two leads, but Robert Cummings, although he excelled in light and sometimes silly comedy, had a solid grounding in excellent dramatic work - between 1942 and 1954 he was also the star of KING'S ROW (yes, he had the starring male role, not Ronald Reagan), Hitchcock's SABOTEUR, then FLESH AND FANTASY, THE LOST MOMENT and SLEEP, MY LOVE, and also as co-star of Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER, not to mention taking a lovely turn as an angel in a movingly bittersweet and still little-known comedy-drama Western called HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS, where he comes to Earth to escort a little boy's soul back to Heaven, but finds him still alive; the rest of the film's lightness of heart is burdened by the fact that while we get close to the little boy, both we and the angel know he must die; Cummings makes it all work in what can only be termed a near-angelic performance!
(Mann also used, more than once, the somewhat similar Dennis O'Keefe, an excellent dramatic lead who was also a phenomenally good farceur - even better than Cummings - when given the opportunity.) Low budget or not, they had to borrow Arlene Dahl from M-G-M for this one, and I'd strongly suggest that anyone who thinks Ms. Dahl could provide only beauty to a good acting cast has obviously never seen her as the two-timing and grasping lead of NO QUESTIONS ASKED or as Rhonda Fleming's psychopathic bad sister in SLIGHTLY SCARLET.
A load of top-flight character actors - Arnold Moss, Norman Lloyd, Charles McGraw and Beulah Bondi - take turns at almost stealing the film, but the leads hold onto their characters and do full justice to their best reputations, most especially Basehart (an actor who, despite a near-profound acting versatility, never seemed to quite find his niche in movies, which probably says more about us than it does about him).
This early effort from Anthony Mann (who went on to direct suchclassics as Winchester '73 and The Man from Laramie) containshis typical fast-pacing as well as an alternation betweenextraordinarily wide landscape shots and extreme closeups, plushis trademark fight and horse scenes, but played against theunlikely backdrop of the French Revolution's Reign of Terrorperiod.
Rather than drown actors such as BobCummings and Arlene Dahl in period accuracy that wouldoverwhelm their expressive range, the performers--the entirepicture, in fact--seems to be winking at the fact that it is crammingthe entire Terror into 87 action- and intrigue-packed minutes.(Dahl-watchers will be especially delighted by her campy, vampyhijinks as a potential double agent who can impersonate everyonefrom the most elegant marquise to a chicken farmer's wife withjust a rearrangement of a few fashion accessories.) Indeed, RoT packs all the familiar faces of the Revolution into theaction for their respective fifteen seconds of fame: the Marquis deLafayette, Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just and even good-oldNapoleon, who shows up at the end for one of the picture's silliest,most sublime moments.To that end, pay special attention to Richard Basehart's portrayal ofthe infamous tyrant Robespierre.
Robert Cummings (D'Aubigny) goes undercover to end the reign of terror that has gripped France after the revolution in the C18th.
The story is strong, the sets realistic (since 1949 I've been to France maybe 30 times), the dark cinematography brilliant.Searching on Netflix for the 2007 film "Black Book" the search also brought up "Reign of Terror" under the alternate title of "Black Book." I said to myself, that's a good one.
Robert Cummings and Arlene Dahl, two people you would never suspect to appear in a movie like this, are quite effective as the leads.
A gorgeous dramatization of the French revolution in its dying phase with all the leaders going down, Danton, Robespierre and St. Just, with Robert Cummings as a kind if French pimpernel working for Lafayette to unsettle the revolutionary establishment that has derailed into terror.
Directed by Anthony Mann, with a screenplay by Aeneas MacKenzie and Philip Yordan, this noirish fictionalized historical drama focuses on the time period just after the French Revolution dubbed the 'reign of terror, when silver-tongued Maximilian Robespierre (played by Richard Basehart) used the people's confusion and nearly became France's new dictator.Robert Cummings plays Charles D'Aubigny, who impersonates a foreign executioner named Duval that was summoned to do some necessary dirty work by Robespierre.
Arlene Dahl plays Madelon, a Barras ally who knew D'Aubigny previously (and romantically), which is (at times) both an asset and a liability for the country's 'savior'.Arnold Moss play Fouché, the untrustworthy head of Robespierre's secret police, who has his own agenda and desire for a power grab.
Beulah Bondi plays Grandma Blanchard, the matriarch at the farm where D'Aubigny and Madelon temporarily receive refuge while hiding from St. Just; a very young Russ Tamblyn appears uncredited as one of the Blanchard children.The film begins with Robespierre having his previously trusted friend Danton (Wade Crosby, uncredited) sentenced and convicted as an enemy of the people, to give one a sense of how crazy the post- revolution environment has become (and the power of Maximilien as accuser).
Shortly thereafter, Duval (Charles Gordon, uncredited) is killed by a mysterious man that turns out to be D'Aubigny, who'd received a ring from the exiled General, the Marquis de Lafayette (Wilton Graff, uncredited) to prove his true loyalty to the people, and Barras.Near the end of the film, a brief reference is made to France's future when Fouché speaks to a soldier claiming to be Napoleon Bonaparte..
Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Arlene Dahl, and Norman Lloyd star in this excellent little tense thriller set during the French Revolution.
Robert Cummings is looking for a certain book, obviously, to bring down Richard Basehart, who's in power and control over the people.
It's funny to watch how Hollywood treats French history .Historically this terror evocation leaves a lot to be desired .Nothing for instance concerns the reason why the terror was instituted:at the time the country had to fight two enemies :the foreign countries and the royalists .At the beginning ,the terror was "useful" ,although they killed a lot of innocents (including the genius Lavoisier who virtually invented chemistry ,the poet Chénier and the suffragette Olympe de Gouges ,one of the first women to claim sexual equality).In the movie,Barras ,who played a prominent part in the fall of RObespierre has a minor part ,except in the final scenes .Instead we have a chivalrous noble (Robert Cummings) and his gorgeous mistress Madelon (Arlene Dahl).For good measure they hint at the unfortunate late Marie-Antoinette and Bonaparte appears in the flesh towards the end ,as the messiah (?).PLus "La Carmagnole" "AH CA Ira!
The Black Book (AKA: Reign of Terror) is directed by Anthony Mann and written by Aeneas MacKenzie and Phillip Yordan.
It stars Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Richard Hart, Arlene Dahl, Charles McGraw and Arnold Moss.
But there is hope in the form of a resistance freedom fighter named Charles D'Aubigny (Cummings), if only he can locate the secret Black Book belonging to Robespire then he can curtail the tyrant's plan.Before he would make his name in Adult Westerns and Period Epics, Anthony Mann made a considerable mark on film noir.
Now, I've read several books on the French Revolution, but there are a bunch of things I learned from this supremely stylish film (Anthony Mann).
Mainly, that The Terror occurred at night in noirish lighting (John Alton) with a great supporting cast of Basehart, Moss, Lloyd and McGraw; that the art guy who designed Paris (Cameron Menzies) cast all sorts of nightmarish shadows over the city; and that not even a well-meaning lightweight like Robert Cummings could spoil these inspired events.
As a result, the movie is a visual Terror that really fires up the imagination, history books or no.But I especially love it when that bewigged fop Robespierre is led into the Assembly near the end, and this raucous wall of faces fills the screen.
The beautiful Arlene Dahl is working for another member of the National Assembly with similar aims and they join forces.If Reign Of Terror had been done at a major studio like MGM or Paramount we might have seen a full blown color production.
In doing that it gives Reign Of Terror a noir like quality that is the second most effective thing in the film.
Robespierre was a man who disdained the pleasures of the flesh and the world had recently been dealing with another fanatic named Hitler who was the same way.If you discount the silliness of Robespierre actually keeping a written list somewhere, Reign Of Terror despite its cheap production values, does effectively capture the mood of France in the middle 1790s.
The Black Book/Reign of Terror has the style of a gangster movie fused with the screenplay of a classic spy story, which is set in an anarchical post-revolution France.
a filmed play, which seemed to be the prevailing style at the time.All and all with its adequate story and its unique visual style, the Black Book is worth a viewing...if you can find it.
Unfortunately, the disc I have of this is a very poor print, and the dialogue was so fuzzy I missed a lot of it."Reign of Terror" is a 1949 film directed by Anthony Mann and stars Robert Cummings and Arlene Dahl.The time is May 1794.
Duval, however, has been replaced by Charles D'Aubigny, a patriot who wants to bring down Robespierre.This filmed moved quickly, and Cummings and Dahl certainly made an attractive couple.
However, under Mann's direction, he does a good job.Basehart is wonderful as Robespierre, and Arnold Moss, who looks like he could have been Adrien Brody's father, is an effective Fouche, who became later the head of Napoleon's secret police.France continued to have a tough time after the monarchy was brought down.
They got Anthony Mann to direct and the incomparable John Alton as their cinematographer for this thrilling noir about the French Revolution.
The supporting cast is better than the leads, especially Arnold Moss as Fouche and Richard Basehart as Robespierre.I'm surprised this picture doesn't have a better following, with just a few hundred votes, so if you see it you can count yourself among the lucky few..
It's up to secret agent Bob Cummings to find it and convince everyone of the danger the nation faces.There have been some exceptional films about the French Reign of Terror (in the 1790s), such as THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL, A TALE OF TWO CITIES and DANTON.
Overall, it's pretty much just a time-passer and an actor I usually love in films (Richard Basehart) is pretty bland as is the lead, Bob Cummings..
ROBERT CUMMINGS and ARLENE DAHL are improbably cast in a grim tale of the French Revolution during the famous reign of terror following the storming of the Bastille.
RICHARD BASEHART plays the treacherous keeper of "The Black Book", Robspierre, seen in powdered wig, a man with a twisted mind and soul, who declares that "the Revolution has abolished God." JESS BARKER is an equally treacherous henchman, a soldier of the Republic assigned to find the man who stole the infamous book listing the names of the enemies of France.The low-key B&W photography hides most of the sets in deep shadows, giving the impression that it covers the low-budget production values and at the same time gives the story a film noir ambiance.Cummings and Barker, usually cast in more lightweight material, are fine in some sketchily written roles and Dahl is her usual attractive self, little more, as a woman of mystery.RUSS TAMBLYN has a minor early role and BEULAH BONDI has a small part as a woman who knows the whereabouts of the Black Book.It ends, of course, with the downfall of the evil Robspierre and his cohorts.Summing up: Fairly interesting, but Arlene Dahl's make-up and hairdo is strictly from a modern era.
Boy was I wrong to do that.Loved the look of the whole production, I'd swear that John Alton lit the entire film with the refection of a lit cigar off a quarter.Robert Cummings and Richard Basehart headline with great support from, Arnold Moss, Beulah Bondi, Charles McGraw, Arlene Dahl and Richard Hart.
Look close and you can see long time bit players, John Doucette, Dabbs Greer, Dan Seymour and Royal Dano.The story is about a group of patriots out to stop the evil Robespierre, played by Richard Basehart.
I didn't think I'd enjoy this film given the description on the DVD sleeve and it's setting during the time of the French Revolution, but it quickly got my attention with it's darkness and intrigue.
So it was rather comical to me to see his reaction to the Lady Madelon (Arlene Dahl) impersonating the wife of the man Cummings is himself working undercover as.The story of course is not a comedy, in fact it's full of espionage and intrigue about the historical Robespierre (Richard Basehart) and his attempt to become dictator of France while eliminating potential opposition named in his personal Black Book.
Robert Cummings gets one of his best roles (yes, he CAN act) as the guy who goes undercover to retrieve the black book, in order to topple potential dictator Richard Baseheart.
Fidel Castro worked his way down to mailmen.As far as I can tell, this is a fictional story of Robert Cummings posing as an imported German executioner and detective working for the evil Richard Basehart as Robespierre, the chief rebel, who wanted to become dictator.