Cinq Tulipes rouges
 

Posted on 22.10.2023

As improbable as it is entertaining, this crime comedy was filmed in part (mostly at the starting point of stages) during the 1948 Tour de France. The second “grande boucle” was won by the legendary Gino Bartali, who is excluded from the movie, and thus also from this article, but that's just as well.

The credits include some prestigious names of former cyclists, some of whom have become team managers, lending their endorsement to the realism of the race: Francis Pélissier, a rider who made a career in the shadow of his brother Henri, in the days of Albert Londres and the "forçats de la route” (“road warriors"), Fernand Mithouard and finally, Georges Speicher, winner of the 1933 Tour.

 
Cinq tulipes rouges, 1949 © Pathé films

Despite all their efforts to understand team strategies, the script by Marcel Rivet, a leading popular writer of the day, and Charles Exbrayat, a successful crime author, is as far-fetched as you could possibly imagine - it portrays a world-class cycling race plunged into mourning with each passing day due to murders committed by a serial killer who leaves a red tulip next to each death as his “signature”.

Nobody thinks of stopping the massacre as the yellow jerseys roll out in succession, murder after murder... All the better: the show is that much more enjoyable, even if we detect the culprit a few reels before the denouement. As was often the case at the time, the supporting cast is superb: Suzanne Dehelly plays "Colonelle", a spicy sports journalist and Jean Brochard plays a detective who looks like he's stepped out of a Franquin comic strip. Efficiently directed by Jean Stelli, a few years after the great success of his movie The Blue Veil (Voile bleu) with Gaby Morlay (and her eternal handkerchief), this prolific filmmaker is little-regarded (except by the unorthodox historian Jacques Lourcelles, who describes one of Stelli’s melodramas starring Tino Rossi as "Sirkian"). Will his reputation be restored one day? To be continued...

Aurélien Ferenczi

SCREENING

Cinq tulipes rouges by Jean Stelli (1949, 1h37, VFSTA)
Institut Lumière (Villa) - Sunday, 22 October at 6.15pm