L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon (1937)
Directed by Claude Autant-Lara, Maurice Lehmann

Film Review

The case of the Courrier of Lyon was one of the great causes célèbres of the French Revolution, an infamous miscarriage of justice that inspired several novels, plays and films. For many years, the wrongful execution (by guillotine) of an innocent man supported the arguments of those who argued for the abolition of the death penalty in France, although it wasn't until 1981 that capital punishment was finally consigned to history, one of the first acts of the Mitterrand presidency.  L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon (1937) is the film that most faithfully recounts the incident and most effectively argues against the death penalty.  Indeed, Pierre Blanchar's repeated protests at the film's horrific climax - 'Je suis innocent!  Je suis innocent!  Je suis innocent!' - stay with you long after the film is over.

The film was based on a stage play of the same title by Paul Siraudin and Louis-Mathurin Moreau, which had previously been adapted by Albert Capellani in 1911 and Léon Poirier in 1923. The tragic turn of events begins on 27th April 1796, in the fourth year of the newly created French Republic. On this fateful day, a mail coach is on its way from Lyon to Paris when it is ambushed by a party of robbers on horseback.  After brutally killing the coachman and a guard, the bandits manage to get away with a small fortune in banknotes destined for the French army in Italy.  Not long afterwards, four members of the gang are arrested when they try to pass on the stolen banknotes.  One of the four is Couriol, an acquaintance of the wealthy idler Joseph Lesurques.

On hearing of Couriol's arrest, Lesurques makes an attempt to have him released from prison, so convinced is he that his friend is incapable of murder.  As he does so, Lesurques is positively identified as the leader of the gang by two women who work at an inn visited by the robbers.  When further witnesses testify against Lesurques, Judge Daubenton has no choice but to have him arrested and tried along with the others.  What no one realises is that Lesurques has an exact double and that the man who planned and led the robbery, Dubosc, is still at liberty.  To clear his name, Lesurques reveals that on the day of the crime he was in the company of his mistress.  No one believes his story, and even when two of Dubosc's criminal associates protest his innocence it seems that there is no hope he will escape the guillotine. The denouement has a frightening inevitability about it, but it still comes as a shock, and the dry coda that follows cannot fail to leave a sour after-taste.

L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon was the first of three films that Claude Autant-Lara directed in collaboration with Maurice Lehmann (although Lehmann takes the sole director's credit).  Immediately prior to this, Autant-Lara had directed one solo feature, Ciboulette (1933), but this proved to be a spectacular flop and effectively derailed a promising directing career.  To continue making films, Autant-Lara went into partnership with Lehmann, a prominent theatre director who was keen to make his mark on the cinema.  After L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon, the two men made two further films together, Le Ruisseau (1938) and Fric-frac (1939), after which Autant-Lara resumed his solo career with The Mysterious Mr. Davis (1939) and Le Mariage de Chiffon (1941).

Those familiar with Autant-Lara's later work - in particular his dark satire Douce (1943) and black comedy L'Auberge rouge (1951) - can hardly fail to recognise his distinctive imprint on L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon, particularly the warped irony lying just beneath the surface.   The compelling tale of a man wrongly arrested, tried and executed for a crime he did not commit was scripted by two of French cinema's great screenwriters, Jacques Prévert (known for the poetic realist masterpieces he created with Marcel Carné) and Jean Aurenche (his first of many collaborations with Autant-Lara).  With a distinguished cast at his disposal - headed by stars Pierre Blanchar and Dita Parlo - Autant-Lara could hardly put a foot wrong.  The staging of the robbery is masterfully executed and Blanchar's slow march towards the scaffold makes gripping viewing.

The presence of such colourful character actors as Dorville, Jean Tissier and Charles Dullin adds to the grim reality of the production, as well as some subtle shards of exceedingly dark humour.  Dullin's character - a blind man whose testimony finally convinces the leading magistrate in the affair of Blanchar's guilt - imprints itself on our mind as a potent symbol of a judicial system that is not only deaf but also blind.  There were many subsequent films made in France arguing against the death penalty - André Cayatte's Nous sommes tous des assassins (1952), José Giovanni's Deux hommes dans la ville (1973) and Michel Drach's Le Pull-over rouge (1979) - but none of these has quite the impact of Autant-Lara's L'Affaire du courrier de Lyon.  As your trusty reviewer completes this article his head still echoes with the cries of the wrongly convicted man.  'Je suis innocent!  Je suis innocent!  Je suis innocent!'