L'île aux trente cercueils

Seen today ,some aspects of the miniseries may seem obsolete,old-fashioned , its performances may seem theatrical ,but it's much superior to the remake which the French TV is currently broadcasting .

Maurice Cravenne's directing may seem flat , the action slow-moving ,but it inspires its stressful atmosphere ; he only directed one theatrically-released movie, "la danse de mort" ,but it's a black gem ,featuring a brilliant Erich Von Stroheim.

The 2022 version enjoys more important means than the 1979 one, but it fails totally to convince; Viriginie Le Doyen's island (l'île d'Ouessant) is a nice place to be;it has nothing to do with Veronique's gloomy islet where the sound of the sea and the howling wind create a frightening atmosphere.

Leblanc's novel was published in 1919 and it depicted horrible scenes in a world gone mad (1917) ;deprived of its historical context, his utterly implausible tale does not make sense anymore.

Hence the failure of the "modernized " screenplay ; transferring a Gothic novel into a trite amour fou drama was a risky move;doing so with dumb red herrings,gore, far-fetched plot and wasted actors was bound to disappoint the audience .Lupin or not Lupin.