The Strange Mr. Victor

media release: France | 1938 | DCP | 103 min. | French with English subtitles

Director: Jean Grémillon

Cast: Raimu, Madeleine Renaud, Pierre Blanchar

Victor (Raimu), a seemingly respected citizen and shop owner in a small provincial community, is, in fact, a murderous underworld boss. When an innocent man (Blanchar) is blamed for one of Victor’s crimes, he escapes from prison and seeks shelter with the one person he knows he can trust, the “upstanding” Monsieur Victor! Filled with humor and suffused with a glowing humanism, Grémillon’s superb film is a surprising tale without traditional heroes and villains, a movie worth comparing to the best of Jean Renoir. A new 4K restoration will be screened.

Admission free for all screenings, seating limited. No admission 15 minutes after scheduled start times. Please visit our website for a complete listing of programs and descriptions.

NEW FRENCH RESTORATIONS: Beginning with the Lumieres and the origins of motion pictures more than 130 years ago, France has remained one of the world’s leading contributors to the art of cinema. From January through April, the Cinematheque will present six French feature films, all shown in new digital restorations, that cover nearly sixty years of French cinema history, from the 1930s to the 1990s. The lineup begins with a weird and fascinating psychological thriller unknown to most American audiences, Paul Vecchiali’s The Strangler. Plus, Manon, an Henri-Georges Clouzot masterpiece made before the director’s The Wages of Fear and Diabolique; Jeunet and Caro’s cult classic, Delicatessen; Godard’s futuristic mind-melter Alphaville; and Lady Killer & The Strange Mr. Victor, two late 1930s gems by the great Jean Grémillon, subject of a 2015 Cinematheque series.