Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Alex da Silva Painter Pierre Fresnay (Brissot) arrives at a secluded mountainside hotel that has been cut off by an avalanche. He carries a box with him and has a rather unpleasant attitude which alienates him from the other guests there. The police may or may not be on his tail as they arrive to ask about a man they have been chasing. When his box is stolen by supernatural forces, he decides it is best to come clean and tell his tale. We are then thrown into a flashback story that explains his life and how he came to have this box, and what its significance is as well as what is inside. It's a story of selling your soul to the devil and things come to an end at this mountainside hotel.It's a good film that keeps you gripped. Fresnay is thoroughly dislikable at the beginning of the film but due to his predicament he wins you over and you understand why he is this way. A small man in a bowler hat, Palau, seems to follow him around. His appearances keep the tension going as he can change fortune but not necessarily in a good way. Fresnay has this box that gives him instant success, wealth, love, etc but it comes at a cost. His love interest is Josseline Gael (Irene) who is pretty straight-talking and whose behaviour also seems influenced by whether or not Fresnay has the box. Her real life story is interesting as she was married to a member of the French Gestapo and was jailed the following year to this film being made. She was subsequently stripped of her French citizenship whilst her husband was executed by a firing squad in 1946.An annoyance at the beginning of the film is that everyone speaks too quickly so that you just about have time to read the subtitles let alone look at the picture of the actor's faces speaking the lines at the same time. It can be frustrating. You need to accustom yourself to this and then things get OK. The plot's theme is interesting and there are good sequences including a line-up of masked men, all previous owners of the box, who have a brief tale to tell. Fresnay's ability comes from painting with his left hand and he signs his name as Maximus Leo. Is this name significant? Yes it is.What would you do if your debt kept doubling everyday and the debtor required payback? Easy, go to the bank and get a loan. Not sure why Fresnay didn't do that. But, then again, the devil doesn't play fair, so would probably conjure up a bank shortfall on that day. Maybe the best thing is to just enjoy the success you've got while it lasts. Fresnay fights back.

christopher-underwood Undoubtedly an interesting film from Maurice Tourneur and made the same year his son was in the US making Cat People. The father about 70 when he made this made mostly silent films, the sound ones coming in his later years and to make things more difficult this would have been in occupied France. For me it seems too arch, his style clearly rooted in the silent era there is a tendency for slow methodical explanation and a certain amount of repetition. In an otherwise amazing scene towards the end, we see the chain of people that have been involved in the deals with the devil and it seems incredible today that we would have to go through every single one's story. All the subtlety of his son's film making is missing here and whilst as I say it is interesting to see it can seem like a long 80 minutes.

Michael_Elliott Carnival of Sinners (1943) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Excellent French horror film from director Maurice Tourneur about a talentless painter (Pierre Fresnay) who is given the opportunity to buy a mysterious chest and with it a certain power that will bring greatness and fame. It doesn't take long for the painter to realize that he's actually sold his soul to the Devil and he must try and find a way to get it back. I had never heard of this film until it recently was shown on Turner Classic Movies and afterwards I really couldn't wait to tell others about it. It's really hard to believe that this movie isn't better known because it's certainly one of the best horror films from this period that manages to hold up extremely well and it remains quite creepy. The story of one's soul being sold isn't exactly original but director Tourneur does a masterful job at showing how one could go crazy trying to figure out a way to gain his soul back. I really loved the way the film drew you into the greatness that would come with fame and riches and it also did a great job at showing how difficult it would be to give this stuff up. The film is quite thoughtful in the way it shows the highs and lows of this mysterious box and the finale is just downright chilling to watch. Fresnay is terrific in his role, which requires him to act out various emotions throughout the picture. I thought the actor did a fantastic job and especially during the scenes where he begins to realize the mistake he's made. The supporting cast is equally strong as well. The film has some wonderful cinematography and the use of shadows is quite impressive. CARNIVAL OF SINNERS shows what a talented director can do to a familiar story and in the end this here is certainly one of the better films of the genre and deserves much more attention.

GL84 Down on his luck and trying to change it, a man acquires a cursed hand said to accomplish that and finds it to come true, only for the devilish owner of the hand to appear to him looking to collect on the final aspect of the deal.Overall, this was a very puzzling effort as there's some great stuff here and some really troubling stuff. The troubling stuff is off to a start right away, as the main gimmick of this is that it's supposed to be the lead recounting his story to the group in a remote mountain lodge, yet it takes a good while to start off the story-telling which really throws the pacing to this one all over the place. Rather than be introduced to everything quite quickly, the dragged-out pace early on makes the first half seem quite overlong as it sets up his new lifestyle change and the resulting situations that spring from that. After that, it gets a lot better when the Satanic angle finally gets played and that sets off a lot of good stuff, from being tormented by the ever-increasing amount needed to end it all to the string of luck that comes to an end through his meddling is all in good fun, and when that gets to the finale with the assembled owners in masks recounting their fates, it's when this one really gets going and delivers some fun. All in all, it's problematic but not too bad.Today's Rating/PG-13: Violence.