I guess I'm most used to seeing Akim Tamiroff with a moustache, but as here, he often wasn't - a good performance as George Sanders' sidekick.
And I did notice early on the interesting designs which are often in the background, as pictured above, perhaps a nod to Sirk's theatrical past?
This was an independent production which Sirk co-wrote (uncredited) with Ellis St Joseph. "Vidocq was one of these in-between characters: a crook turned policeman, but still a crook. The starting point was this. If you want to catch a thief, find another thief to do the job. George Sanders had a great capacity for understanding in-between values, being an in-between person himself. He had just the right mixture of arrogance and aplomb for the part. I thought he was great in all the pictures he did for me."
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| This horse is incredibly still. Just when I was convinced it was a fake horse, it moved (a bit). |
He found that American audiences did not pick up on the film's ironies and it didn't do too well.
It has some wonderful touches like that when we meet the Carole Landis character she's in silhouette, and that's also how she ends in the picture:
Also like the way he employs all of Tamiroff's disreputable family in positions in the bank to help him steal all the money; then, when he changes heart, we find they would rather keep the jobs they've grown used to than go back to crime!
Chinese fair a good setting - makes final showdown between Tamiroff and Sanders theatrical (probably on purpose).
Apart from a slightly wet Signe Hasso, a good cast. Gene Lockhart funny as Chief of Police (see Madame Bovary), Alma Kruger, Alan Napier, Jo Ann Marlowe (Mildred Pierce), Vladimir Sokoloff, Skelton Naggs.
Photographed by Guy Roe. Interesting credit of production supervisor Eugen Schuftan (who's uncredited on camera also). Music by Schoenberg pupil Hanns Eisler. Edited by Albrecht Joseph and designed by Gordon Wiles.
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