The Phantom Wagon

La charrette fantôme

France

1939

93 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

French

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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SCR Julien Duvivier, Alexandre Arnoux, Selma Lagerlöf

CAST Pierre Fresnay, Marie Bell, Micheline Francey, Louis Jouvet, Jean Mercanton, Ariane Borg, Alexandre Rignault, Robert Le Vigan, Palau, René Génin, Marie-Hélène Dasté, Philippe Richard, Georges Mauloy, Valentine Tessier, Georges Douking

PROD DES Jacques Krauss, André Trébuchet

He who hears the wheels of the Ghost Wagon knows he is soon going to die. Every year on New Year’s Eve, the Wagon, driven by Death himself, comes to claim someone at midnight… Overtaken by sickness, David Holm becomes a wicked person. He beats his wife and children and drinks himself into a blind stupor at the inn with his friend Georges. On the last day of the year, Georges is killed at midnight and the Ghost Wagon takes him away. Accused of his friend’s murder, David seeks refuge at a Salvation Army hostel. Here, he meets Sister Edith, who becomes attached to David and tries to save him. When David is ready to leave the hostel, Edith asks him to return the following year at the same time. But, without the kindly support of Sister Edith, David’s life soon falls apart. He does not know if his soul can be saved before the Ghost Wagon arrives to collect him… —Filmsdefrance.com

Director

Julien Duvivier

Briefly enrolled at the University in his home town of Lille, France, Julien Duvivier dropped out to study acting in Paris. Hired by Andre Antoine’s Theatre Libre, Duvivier was retained as Antoine’s assistant when the latter began directing films in 1916. After apprenticing under several notables of the French cinema, Duvivier was allowed to direct his first feature, Haceldama ou le Prix du Sang (1919). Working steadily and successfully throughout the 1920s, Duvivier emerged as one of the major French film talents of the early talkie era. He was particularly adept at handling multi-storied films, all-star efforts in which several short vignettes were tied together by a central theme. His two biggest European hits, Un Carnet du Bal (1935) and Pepe le Moko (1937), won Duvivier his first Hollywood contract. He made his American bow with a stylized and heavily romanticized biography of Johann Strauss, The Great Waltz (1938). Duvivier’s best-remembered Hollywood efforts of the 1940s were… read more