This is a highly unusual film set in and around Carcassonne and Albi in the far south of France. It contains a great deal of location shooting. It is filled in particular with brooding cinematography of the walls of mediaeval Carcassonne as they appeared in 1945, when there was no one there and not a tourist to behold. The story deals with the haunting legends of the Cathars of the Middle Ages, known also as the Albigensians. The film is essentially a fantasy, and it is filmed in a dreamy way. The film is now available in a restored version, and is even on Blue Ray, from French Amazon, for those who know French. But there are no English subtitles on that version. For those you have to order it from Movie Detective. The film is not based on a novel. It is rather difficult to know where the original story came from, as there were five writers, three of them uncredited. Since the first of those listed (but uncredited) is Jean Anouilh, the famous French playwright, it is possible that he wrote an original scenario, which was the basis for the final version of Gaston Bonheur, the little known writer who is credited with both screenplay and dialogue. The director was Serge de Poligny, whose previous film, THE PHANTOM BARON (1943) had dialogue by Jean Cocteau. The romantic female lead in this film, Sylvie, is played by the Romanian actress Jany Holt (real name Ruxandra Ecaterina Vladescu Olt, born in Bucharest in 1909). By the time of this story she had experienced horrific accidents in which two of her lovers were killed (the first one in a barn by a falling scythe). She believes that she is cursed. The highly romantic figure of Roland, played by Pierre Richard-Willm (yes, that is the correct spelling, believe it or not) becomes obsessed with her from first sight on the deserted ramparts of Carcasonne, and falls in love with her. But Sylvie spurns him because she believes that she will bring disaster and death to anyone who loves her. The romantic and dreamy looks of Pierre Richard-Willm had been put to good use previously when he played Werther in the Max Ophuls film, LE ROMAN DE WERTHER (1938), the film of Goethe's novel THE SORROWS OF THE YOUNG WERTHER. (The Werther novel had previously been filmed as a silent in 1922 by the woman director Germaine Dulac, but that appears to be lost, and not even a cast list of it survives.) Sylvie's adoptive guardian Monsieur Toulzac (played by Édouard Delmont) is obsessed by the mediaeval Cathars and wishes to discover their secret underground religious meeting place. He does discover it, in his own garden which is attached to his house built into the ancient walls of the town. The entrance to it is through a descending passage beneath the apparent grave of a mediaeval knight, above which lies a stone effigy of a recumbent knight in armour. Toulzac wants Sylvie to explore this underground site for him, because he is confined to a wheelchair and cannot go down there himself. He is so excited about his discovery that he is inconsiderate of the potential danger to Sylvie. Meanwhile, the dreamy Roland, who is a composer and pianist, rushes after her. The caverns are immense, and full of stalactites. They find the subterranean chapel, with its spacious and high setting, but I shall not reveal what happens next. It is difficult to say whether this film is good or not, as that depends upon one's taste. Some people might be exasperated by the unreality of it, but more romantic viewers will not be put off by that.
