La main du diable [Carnival of Sinners] (1943)

(On Cable TV, October 2022) Deals with the devil aren’t uncommon in horror movies, but when they’re done well, they will always hold a special thrill. So it is that from wartime France comes La main du diable, director Maurice Tourneur (father of the better-known Jacques Tourneur, also active in horror at the time) delivering a short but punchy tale of an artist who agrees to a seemingly innocuous bargain in exchange for success and fortune. Let’s be blunt: the first half of the film is not why it’s fondly remembered today. It’s talky, atmospheric but otherwise rather ordinary in its depiction of a man getting into a bargain he doesn’t understand, even when it’s spelled out to him through Pierre Palau’s delightfully devilish performance. By the time he’s offered a way out of the deal before exponential growth, every viewer will be screaming for him to take the loss. But he doesn’t (with some suspiciously inconvenient happenstance) and that’s for the best, because the film’s most interesting moments come after that, as the history of those who took the deal (and the titular devil’s hand) is described. You can argue that, even at what should have been a zippy 80 minutes, La main du diable doesn’t have quite enough plot to go around—but the uneven pacing and sometimes-aimless storytelling eventually become part of the charm and fun of the finished film. It may not necessarily work all that well or be finely structured, but the last fifteen minutes leave a strong impression and sometimes that’s quite enough.