The Passerby (1982 film)

Last updated
The Passerby
La Passante du Sans-Souci.jpg
Directed by Jacques Rouffio
Written by
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Jean Penzer
Edited by Anna Ruiz
Music by Georges Delerue
Production
companies
Distributed by
  • Parafrance Films
  • Scotia International Filmverleih
Release date
  • 14 April 1982 (1982-04-14)
Running time
110 minutes
Countries
  • France
  • West Germany
Language French

The Passerby (original French title: La passante du Sans-Souci, "The Passerby of Sans-Souci") is a 1982 French-West German drama film directed by Jacques Rouffio, based on the 1936 novel on the same name by Joseph Kessel, and starring Romy Schneider and Michel Piccoli. [1] It was Schneider's last film.

Contents

It was shot at the Spandau Studios in Berlin and on location in Berlin and Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Hans Jürgen Kiebach.

Plot

At the Paraguayan embassy in Paris, Max Baumstein, respected chairman of an international human rights organisation, shoots the ambassador dead in cold blood. Arrested and charged with murder, he tries to explains to his agonised wife Lina what led him to this act.

As a child in Berlin in 1933, his father was shot dead in front of him by Nazi thugs and he was beaten, leaving him lame for life. Michel and Elsa, a couple in a neighbouring apartment, took care of the traumatised boy. When Michel's business was vandalised by Nazis, he put Elsa and Max on a train to Paris and later sent them money via a friendly French salesman, Maurice. Michel was sentenced to five years in a concentration camp for anti-Nazi activity, leaving Elsa and the boy free but stranded. Elsa tried to get work singing in a club but ended up as a “hostess”. Fond of both her and Max, Maurice took care of the boy. At the club Elsa caught the eye of von Legaart, a diplomat at the German embassy in Paris, who agreed to get Michel released in return for a night with her. When Elsa met Michel at the railway station, von Legaart had both murdered.

At his trial, Max relates how Maurice took him to safety in Switzerland, from where he has devoted the rest of his life to fighting the evils that led to the death of everybody he loved. When his organisation discovered that the Paraguayan ambassador was von Legaart under an assumed name, he only saw one way to achieve justice. The court sentences him to five years suspended and he walks free with Lina, to abuse and threats from neo-Nazis. An end title notes that six months later he and Lina were murdered by unknown assassins.

Cast and roles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romy Schneider</span> Austrian-French actress (1938–1982)

Romy Schneider was a German-French actress. She is regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time and became a cult figure due to her role as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Sissi trilogy in the mid-1950s. She later reprised the role in a more mature version in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973). She began her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. Schneider moved to France, where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Her performance in That Most Important Thing: Love is regarded as one of the greatest in the history of cinema.Coco Chanel called Romy “the ultimate incarnation of the ideal woman.” Bertrand Tavernier remarked: “Sautet is talking about Mozart with regard to Romy. Me, I want to talk of Verdi, Mahler…”

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Kessel</span> French writer

Joseph Kessel, also known as "Jef", was a French journalist and novelist. He was a member of the Académie française and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel Piccoli</span> French actor (1925–2020)

Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli was a French actor, producer and film director with a career spanning 70 years. He was lauded as one of the greatest French character actors of his generation who played a wide variety of roles and worked with many acclaimed directors, being awarded with a Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival.

<i>The Night Porter</i> 1974 Italian film

The Night Porter is a 1974 Italian psychological war drama film. Directed and co-written by Liliana Cavani, the film stars Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling, with Philippe Leroy, Gabriele Ferzetti, and Isa Miranda in supporting roles. Set in Vienna in 1957, the film centers on the sadomasochistic relationship between a former Nazi concentration camp officer (Bogarde) and one of his inmates (Rampling).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Dutronc</span> French musician and actor

Jacques Dutronc is a French singer, songwriter, guitarist, composer, and actor. Some of Dutronc's best-known hits include "Il est cinq heures, Paris s'éveille", "Le Responsable", and "Les Cactus".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Sautet</span> French film director and screenwriter

Claude Sautet was a French film director and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathieu Carrière</span> German actor

Mathieu Carrière is a German stage and screen actor with strong French connections. He has appeared in around 250 films worldwide and in 4000 hours of television. Carrière is also a director and a writer and is known as an advocate for the rights of fathers.

<i>Is Paris Burning?</i> (film) 1966 war film by René Clément

Is Paris Burning? is a 1966 epic black-and-white war film about the liberation of Paris in August 1944 by the French Resistance and the Free French Forces during World War II. A French-American co-production, it was directed by French filmmaker René Clément, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost and Claude Brulé, adapted from the 1965 book of the same title by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre. The film stars an international ensemble cast that includes French, American and German stars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendelin Werner</span>

Wendelin Werner is a German-born French mathematician working on random processes such as self-avoiding random walks, Brownian motion, Schramm–Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to the development of stochastic Loewner evolution, the geometry of two-dimensional Brownian motion, and conformal field theory". He is currently Rouse Ball professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-Souci Palace</span> Historic building in Milot, Haiti; royal residence of Henri Christophe (King Henry I)

The Palace of Sans-Souci, or Sans-Souci Palace, was the principal royal residence of Henry I, King of Haiti, better known as Henri Christophe. It is located in the town of Milot, approximately five kilometres (3 mi) northeast of the Citadelle Laferrière, and thirteen kilometres (8 mi) southwest of the Three Bays Protected Area. Being among the first buildings constructed in a free Haiti after the Haitian Revolution, the Palace and the neighboring Citadelle, are Haitian icons and global symbols of liberty, and were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982.

<i>The Sleeping Car Murders</i> 1965 French film

The Sleeping Car Murders is a 1965 French mystery film directed by Costa-Gavras from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. It stars Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Allégret, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner and Pascale Roberts. The film was the directorial debut of Costa-Gavras, to be followed later by other, more politically-oriented work.

Jacques Rouffio was a French film director and screenwriter. His 1986 film My Brother-in-law Killed My Sister was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">8th César Awards</span>

The 8th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best French films of 1982 and took place on 26 February 1983 at Le Grand Rex in Paris. The ceremony was chaired by Catherine Deneuve and hosted by Jean-Claude Brialy. La Balance won the award for Best Film.

<i>The Things of Life</i> 1970 film

The Things of Life is a 1970 romantic drama film directed by Claude Sautet, based on the 1967 novel Intersection by Paul Guimard. The film centers around a car accident experienced by Pierre, an architect, and the events before and after it. The film won the Louis Delluc Prize, and had 2,959,682 admissions in France, becoming the eighth highest-earning film of the year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Meyen</span> German actor (1924–1979)

Harry Meyen was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 40 films and television productions between 1948 and 1975. In the 1960s he also worked as a theatre director in West Germany.

Véronique Silver was a French actress.

<i>Max et les ferrailleurs</i> 1971 film by Claude Sautet

Max et les ferrailleurs is a 1971 crime drama film directed by Claude Sautet, based on the novel of the same name by Claude Néron. The film stars Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider, with François Périer and Georges Wilson in supporting roles.

La Voleuse, meaning 'the thief', is a 1966 French drama film directed by Jean Chapot, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. In German, the film was titled Schornstein Nr. 4.

<i>The Infernal Trio</i> 1974 film

The Infernal Trio is a 1974 crime comedy horror film directed by Francis Girod from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jacques Rouffio, based on the novel Le Trio infernal by Solange Fasquelle.

References

  1. Insdorf p.40

Bibliography