Panique
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Panique is a French film directed by Julien Duvivier, made in 1946 and released in 1947, starring Michel Simon and Viviane Romance. The screenplay is based on the novel Les Fiançailles de M. Hire by Georges Simenon. The film was released in the United States as Panic.
In 1989 Patrice Leconte remade the film as Monsieur Hire, with the title role played by Michel Blanc.
Plot
The strange and slightly unsettling Monsieur Hire is suspected of a crime. A crowd tracks him down and he seeks escape on the roof of a building.
Cast
- Viviane Romance as Alice
- Michel Simon as M. Hire
- Max Dalban as Capoulade
- Émile Drain as M. Breteuil
- Guy Favières as M. Sauvage
- Louis Florencie as Inspector Marcelin
- Charles Dorat as Inspector Michelet
- Lucas Gridoux as M. Fortin
- Marcel Pérès as Cermanutti
- Lita Recio as Marcelle
- Michel Ardan as Fernand
- Michèle Auvray as Mme Branchu
- Lucien Carol as Inspecteur Benoit
- Olivier Darrieux as Étienne
- Josiane Dorée as Mouchette
- Paul Franck as Docteur Philippon
- Magdeleine Gidon as Mme Capoulade
- Jenny Leduc as Irma
- Louis Lions as Marco
- Emma Lyonel as La cliente
- Jean-François Martial as M. Joubet
- Lucien Paris as M. Branchu
- Jean Sylvain as Raphaël
- Paul Bernard as Alfred
- Robert Balpo as Le client
- Suzanne Desprès as La cartomancienne
Comment
"After the war [many] narratives were spent on some kind of revenge. Marcel Carné's Les portes de la nuit, Robert Bresson's Les dames du Bois de Boulogne , Georges Lacombe's Martin Roumagnac, - the harrying of a Jew to his death in Duvivier's Panique, and a number of Simenon and Steeman thriller adaptations rife with violence and revenge - all of these films attest to a need to project the immediate past on to a different set of narratives that are removed from the immediate arena of guilt (although Panique comes uncomfortably close). Dark social realism is to be found in a considerable number of films during the five-year period after the end of the war. The films of Henri-Georges Clouzot and Henri Decoin are the most remarkable in this context in their fierce, almost cynical pessimism, but the works of Yves Allégret and Julien Duvivier in that period come close on their heels."
