Gathering up French films to watch over the upcoming week,I started to check a pile of DVDs.With having greatly enjoyed his icy allegorical Film Noir Horror ,I was thrilled to find out that I have unintentionally picked up another Christian-Jaque title!,which led to me getting ready to go to school.The plot:Forming a secret society in their boarding school, students Beaume, Sorgue and Macroy talk about writing their own novels and running off to America.Banning the kids from working round the school at night,the teachers treat anything the gang say with doubt.During a science lesson, Sorgue sees a mysterious, "invisible" man go through a wall. Reporting the sighting,Sorgue soon joins the man,by completely disappearing from sight.Getting a postcard in the mail,Beaume,Macroy and most of the other students and teachers believe that Sorgue must have run off safely to somewhere. Taking a close look at the card,"outsider" teacher Walter decides to share his doubts on the disappearance with Beaume and Macroy.View on the film:Landing when the country joined the UK and Italy in signing up to the Munich Agreement, (which led to the Nazi Occupied area of Czechoslovakia being re-named Sudetenland)the screenplay by Jean- Henri Blanchon & Jacques Prévert (with un-credited Victor Hugo "borrowing" for the final) magnificently explores the unease gripping the country in a sharp allegorical manner based around Pierre Véry's book. Gathering what might be the two most unlikely genres, the writers strike a Film Noir-smoked mystery with a daring boys own adventure… and somehow makes the mix work! Holding on to the threads of peace, the writers cover the school with everyone talking about war and outsiders,as the German Walter's offer to help leads to the gang pushing their image of the "monster" aside,and to instead grab the hand of friendship.Keeping the title away from solely being focused on the allegorical,the screenplay unleashes a cracking boys own adventure,with Beaume, Sorgue and Macroy's gaze at the bright lights from across the pond leading to them stumbling into a murderous plot,where they will have to use all their skills to outwit the "baddies." Being set in a children's school,the writers give the surrounding a very adult Film Noir mystery,due to making all the teachers take a step back whenever Walter is near,whilst they are each playing their own ghostly games that they will do everything possible from stopping the gang from uncovering.Joining in the class room,director Christian-Jaque & cinematographer Marcel Lucien rub the title in a rich Film Noir atmosphere,that covers the endless corridors and murky classrooms in ultra-stylish shadows and eerie "upwards" shots ,which allow for the "ghost" of the school to lay in wait. Following Sorgue,Beaume and Macroy, Jaque whips up an adventurous,crispy mood that dives into the frosty school ground in fluid tracking shots that locate the disappearances.Leaping into the "ghostly" events at the school, Michel Simon gives an excellent performance as art teacher Lemel,who Simon mercilessly pushes to the edge of being unhinged,which leads to Lemel become a Film Noir ghost in the school. Stomping round the school with his eyes on everyone, Erich von Stroheim gives a brilliant performance as Walter,thanks to Stroheim's lingering looks to the floor clouding Walter in an intense,foreboding state,as Walter and the boys uncover the real war "ghosts" of the St Agil's school.

You can get a great Trivia question out of this movie: In which film did Charles Aznavour and Serge Reggiani have uncredited roles and Jacques Prevert supply uncredited dialogue. Dix sur dix. You got it in one. This would probably be a great film even without Prevert's linguistic touches because all the elements are in place; a cloistered setting which serves as a microcosm for the world outside, a story that holds the attention with just the right amount of suspense/mystery and an exceptional and, dare I say it, SYMPATHETIC performance from that man you love to hate Eric Von Stroheim who goes toe-to-toe with Michel Simon and is still standing at the end of fifteen rounds. Stroheim - with hair yet - is a member of the faculty at a boarding school for boys or, to put it another way, a German actor is playing an English teacher (teacher OF English)in a French school, quite a trick which he pulls off despite his French being about three times as slow as that of the natives. The film reeks of atmosphere and has perhaps been unfairly overshadowed because it was produced at a time - 1938 - when France was turning out really classic drama such as Hotel du Nord, Quai des brumes, Le Jour se leve, Carnet du bal etc. The good news is that there's an excellent print now available on DVD so what are you waiting for.

Youth culture in the 20th century is literally a mystery. It may have started, innocently enough, with a couple of grand celebrated coming of age novels - Booth Tarkington's "Seventeen" in the U.S. and Alain-Fournier's "Le Grand Meaulne" in France, both published appropriately enough in the teens of the last century. But from then on appeared mystery and action novels aimed squarely at a teenage public in no hurry to grow up and set in a contemporary setting (unlike, say, period pieces like "Treasure Island" or "Kidnapped", or all-out fantasies like "The Lord of the Rings"). The elements of danger, mystery and suspense were always present in that sub-genre of literature as if the thrill of puberty and adolescence had to be naturally expressed through the predominant feeling of fear, left over from the terror of childhood fairy tales. This tradition yielded an untold number of "Hardy Boys" novels and Boy Scout romances on both sides of the Atlantic. This is the tradition that would eventually produce "Scoobidoo" cartoons as well as the Harry Potter novels and that gave the book from which "Les Disparus de St-Agil" is extracted. It is a worthy film with many brilliant adult and juvenile actors (Eric Von Stroheim, Michel Simon and the young Marcel Mouloudji who would eventually loose his first name to become the singer-composer Mouloudji of St-Germain-des-Prés fame in the 50's; even eventual singers and actors Charles Aznavour and Serge Reggiani appear uncredited as school-boys). This story of children disappearing and reappearing while solving a murder-disappearance enigma with supernatural overtones that has stumped more mature minds in their boarding school is a microcosm of adolescent identity acted out with all the natural of Jean Vigo's earlier "Zéro de conduite", thanks to Jacques Prévert's gift for believable dialog. The school's secret society is called "les chiche-capons", which is synonymous with after-school shenanigans and has become the name of a famous French pop group today. The expression is an argot rendering of the chicken games kids play to dare themselves into being braver (chiche = I dare you; capon = chicken, coward, non-entity). Christian-Jacque's direction of this claustrophobic drama is modern, sympathetic, limpid and utilitarian but very different from the sweep and scope of his "comic epics" like "Les Perles de la Couronne" (1937, for Sacha Guitry) or "Fanfan La Tulipe" (1952, with Gérard Philipe).

This movie was made for all these who feel nostalgic for their schooldays :an insert at the beginning of the movie tells us so..So it may have been ,and if so then,it magnificently succeeds in its purpose.Pierre Very ,the scenarist,worked wonders here.Saint-Agil is a boarding -school where three pals have formed a secret society "les chiche-capons" (I do not even know what it means in my first language).One of them is writing a novel which takes the three boys in a world of adventures in Mexico.And there are the teachers;one of them (Von Stroheim)is an alien,probably a German ,although he teaches English,and the others do not like him very much.We are in 1938,and there are hints at war ("A war is always against the aliens" , a rather dumb teacher says ,forgetting the numerous civil wars).Pierre Very astutely mixed two stories which seem independent but which will become one towards the ending (think Hitchcok's "family plot ").One concerns the students :two of them disappear ,where have they gone?A mysterious postcard is sent from America.The other deals with the teachers:one of them falls in the stairs: was it an accident,did he jump,or was he pushed?It's all the more puzzling as the fuses have blown at the same time.And why is there a fork on the floor?Spoiler:Von Stroheim's presence is very moving.In his part of a misunderstood teacher,he almost outshines Michel Simon,no small feat.The ending,which sees this (German?) teacher join the secret society can be interpreted as a plea for friendship ,not only between adults and adolescents but also between nations.End of spoiler"Les disparus de Saint-Agil" ,released at the time when the French cinema was at its absolute peak ,is one of Christian-Jaque 's finest films :he tried to repeat the formula (two stories ,a children and an adult one) in "l'assassinat du père noel"(1941) which was written by Very too,but it was not as convincing."Les anciens de Saint-Loup"(1950),although featuring different characters ,was supposed to be a sequel to "les disparus.." but the magic was gone and although it retains some charm in the first part,it's finally a disappointment.