Les Visiteurs du Soir

Love's vagaries are an old story, but in Les Visiteurs du Soir they receive a pleasant and original enough treatment to justify spending a rather slow couple of hours watching them unfold. At a clean, white castle in 15th-century France, two of the devil's envoys arrive as minstrels, and the ensuing events develop this theme in a quaint and comprehensive format.

Alain Cluny and Arletty are delightfully evil as the envoys, and Jacques Prevet's script and Marcel carne's direction make Cluny's defection from the diabolic cause later in the Picture seem natural enough-although the viewer may at first be left wondering if this is not just another evil ruse. Satan himself, played by Jules Berry, enters the feudal scene with gusto, elegant clothes, and a most attractive cackle of glee that make his part something out of the ordinary. His expert dematerializations are more to the credit of the cameraman.

Marie Dea, Marcel Herrand, and Fernand Ledoux, as the ordinary mortals in the case, Mix pathos and period to good effect, although Ledoux's departure with the devilish Arletty is mildly inconclusive.

Two major exceptions that may be taken with the film concern the pace and the subtitles. The English translations fail to capture the romantic tone of the speeches, which are in clear alignment with the treatment of the film as a whole, and the pace of the action-although intended-eventually gives the impression that the characters are wading about in a ubiquitous pool of glue. Hardened moviegoers will not find the latter objectionable. However, the even the more casual critic of foreign films will be able to overbook it in the face of a generally charming whole.