La cité de l'indicible peur (1964, JP.Mocky) VOF(STmulti) [Director's cut][restoration]

"The city of unspeakable fear" A fantastico-burlesque stroll through the France of the 1960s according to Mocky: a skewer of disturbing neurotics, cellars full of dark secrets, the shadow of the guillotine... And Bourvil as an inspector with a tender heart. Inspectors Triquet and Virgus are launched in pursuit of “Mickey-le-Bénédictin”, a dangerous forger who escaped his death sentence. The investigation leads Triquet to Barges, a sinister and icy city in Auvergne populated by individuals, each more bizarre than the next, from the mayor to the police officer to the butcher. They claim that a fantastic animal, "the beast", or "the bargeasque", haunts the surroundings. Triquet does not intend to be intimidated... Sweet France Remotely inspired by the master of the fantastic grand-guignol, Jean Ray, the film takes off from the credits song towards a big funny farce (“His father was in the police, his uncle too, even his nurse, alas alas, fatalitas!”) crossed with disturbing, but poetic, strangeness (three riders, capes in the wind, launched at a gallop in a contemporary urban landscape). The city of unspeakable fear presents all the characteristics of an excellent Mocky: a gallery of torturous neurotics, afflicted with various tics and encamped by kings of comedy who give it their all. With a special mention to the very young Jean Poiret, a policeman in a kepi obsessed with the fear of losing his hair, and to Raymond Rouleau, a jovial councilor collecting bailiffs, with a speech sprinkled with untimely “what?”. Bourvil, who played the dashing leading man four times with Jean-Pierre Mocky (see also "Un drôle de paroissien", "La grande lessive" and "L'étalon"), illuminates with his presence of innocent with a tender heart, horrified by the death penalty , this dark portrait of eternal France. A France that the filmmaker has never ceased to jeer at: that of a frightened populace quick to lynch, of murderous or corrupt notables and stupid cops running to “the roundup” as to a party… Direction Jean-Pierre Mocky Scenario Gérard Klein Jean-Pierre Mocky Photography Eugen Schuftan Edmond Séchan Music Gérard Calvi With Bourvil Jean-Louis Barrault Francis Blanche Victor Francen Jean Poiret Marcel Pérès Joé Davray Raymond Rouleau Jacques Dufilho René-Louis Lafforgue Roger Legris Fred Pasquali Véronique Nordey Country France Year 1964