Volpone (1941)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur, Jacques de Baroncelli

Film Review

It was in June 1938 that the veteran director Jacques de Baroncelli began work on what was to be one of his most ambitious films, a lavish screen version of Jules Romains' French translation of Stefan Zweig's 1928 German language stage play Volpone.  The latter was itself an adaptation of an earlier work, a play of the same name by the English playwright Ben Jonson, first performed in 1606.  Baroncelli overstretched himself financially (ironically, given how the play starts...) and was soon forced to abandon the production.  Three years later, it was picked up by another film director, Maurice Tourneur, who managed to complete it for the company Île de France Film, with most of the cast of the original shoot.  Although some of the scenes directed by Baroncelli made it into the final film, Tourneur received the sole director's credit.  Another notable omission from the credits is Zweig's name - with France under Nazi Occupation, the Jewish writer was conveniently airbrushed out of the picture.

With handsome production values and a cast comprising some of the finest stage and screen actors of the period, Tourneur's film more than does justice to the original play and ought to be considered a comic masterpiece, French cinema's most deliciously acerbic satire on the deadly sin of greed.  Harry Baur positively revels in the title role and extracts as much comedy mileage from the part as he can, aided by a hideous make-up job that makes him look like Bette Davis's ugly older sister after one vodka martini too many.   As befits an actor of his standing, Baur doesn't just go for the laughs, he also delivers a nuanced character performance which makes his Volpone a well-rounded and tragically believable individual. 

Louis Jouvet has just as much fun as the cunning Mosca, revealing his mischievous intent to us whilst at the same time pulling the wool over everyone else who is blind to all but the lure of wealth.  Charles Dullin, another legend of the French stage, comes dangerously close to stealing the film as the grotesque moneylender Corbaccio, the most enjoyably eccentric of his all too few film appearances.  À propos, it was Dullin who first staged the Romains-Zweig play in Paris in 1928.  Fernand Ledoux, Jacqueline Delubac and Alexandre Rignault add further lustre to a remarkable ensemble, although it has to be said that the combined presence of Baur, Jouvet and Dullin, a lethal combination if ever there was one, render them virtually invisible for much of the film.

Maurice Tourneur may have been in his late sixties when he directed this film but his workmanship is as impeccable as ever.  Whilst he remains faithful to the original stage play, he brings to it a pace and dynamism that no theatrical production could hope to match, to say nothing of the striking visuals (which make the filmed inserts of Venice totally superfluous).  It is worth reminding ourselves that Ben Jonson's play was not written for a posturing intellectual elite but for the throng of ordinary humanity, and Tourneur's film has just this quality of popular appeal, making it the most vibrant and engaging reinterpretation of a Jacobean play a mainstream cinema audience could hope for.  The sets are as grand and ornate as you would expect for a big budget period production of this era, and the costumes are even more extravagant than the performances (all humorously evoking the animal characteristics of the protagonists).  A lively farce with a cogent moral (which remains relevant to this day) Volpone was just the tonic for a conquered nation, and it remains one of the most hysterically funny films in French cinema.  Comedies seldom come much classier than this.

Film Synopsis

Volpone is one of the wealthiest merchants in Venice, but when his ships laden with cargo fail to arrive on time he faces an ignoble ruin.  Spurned by his creditors, he is thrown into prison, and it is here that he meets Mosca, a man he believes he can trust.  Once his ships have returned, Volpone is released from prison and sets about taking revenge on the three men who failed to help him in his hour of need: Corbaccio, Voltore and Corvino.  Following the advice of Mosca, his servant and closest confidante, Volpone takes to his bed and lets it be known that he is close to death.  When Mosca hints that they each stand a chance of inheriting the merchant's entire fortune, Corbaccio, Voltore and Corvino hasten to his bedside, offering gifts as a sign of their devotion.  Corbaccio even agrees to disinherit his own son in Volpone's favour, so certain is he that he will outlive the dying merchant...