![]() ![]() ![]() Arsène grows up to be the dashing Romain Duris, found on a luxury liner lifting jewels and making the ladies swoon – and still devoted to his mother, who is ailing in a hospice and dies when the police try to arrest him during a visit. Things get complex when the apparently innocent and framed father tells his son that he is indeed a thief (but only ever steals from bad people or those too rich to care) and is then apparently killed by a robed accomplice on the road. When nasty authorities come to arrest Theophraste for being a thief, Henriette and her son are thrown out of the family by her aristo brother-in-law, le Duc de Dreux-Soubise (Robin Renucci). It opens with young Arsène (Guillaume Huet) taking a savate lesson from his father Theophraste (Nicky Naude), who is disapproved of by the snobby family of his wife Henriette (Marie Bunuel). It’s mostly based on a single novel, The Countess of Cagliostro, but works in material about the antihero’s origins and adds a long coda set in 1913 – thus turning the whole thing a twisted family saga. Both use French galore, sing the old folk song "auprès de ma blonde" (heard again for the finale), ride on the orient express where they meet a lovely damsel (Ella Raines )soon to be in distress because she owns an invaluable esmerald and her nasty cousins want to do away with her hence ,both sides of Lupin are displayed : the thief who effortlessly steals Rembrandt 's paintings or jewels, but who gives to the orphanage and saves the damsel in distress.(By and large,though Lupin is an impenitent womanizer ,his love affairs are not happy in the books)Of course ,he uses a pseud (Monsieur D'Andrésy) one of his usual tricks.A French superproduction presenting Maurice LeBlanc’s gentleman thief/adventurer in his original 1890s period but for a new generation – as in The Brotherhood of the Wolf, there’s a lot of Savate (French kickboxing) and the plot mixes the occult with the criminal. LIke in many adventures, Lupin is assisted by an accomplice,Armand. Ganimard,(J Carroll Naish)-the only other character who appears in some novels featured in this movie-is the official superintendent and provides it with its comic relief :the scene at the railway station when lupin makes him to be. At a time French TV is butchering Maurice Leblanc 's "l'île aux trente cercueils ", it's refreshing to watch this American adaptation it's not based on an original novel,mind you, but the screenwriters succeeded at capturing the spirit of Lupin's adventures Charles Korvin is well cast, for Leblanc's hero, the gentleman cambrioleur (=thief) was part aristocrat (on his mother's side) part man of the people (on his father's ) they mainly tried to imitate Lupin's first adventures ,the latter ones becoming more and more myterious and even verging on supernatural.
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