Cité Foudroyée, La
Entry updated 23 October 2023. Tagged: Film.
French silent film (1924; vt The City Struck by Lightning; vt The City Destroyed; vt The Thunderstruck City; vt The Destruction of Paris). Films de France. Directed by Luitz-Morat. Written by Jean-Louis Bouquet (based on one of his short stories). Cast includes Alexis Ghasne, Jane Maguenat, Daniel Mendaille and Armand Morins. 70 minutes. Black and white.
Scientist Richard Gallee (Mendaille) writes in the Near Future: "20th December 1930. This is my confession. I am the worst criminal of all time ... I have wrecked one of the most important Cities of the world. My excuse: I was scorned, treated as foolish by those who my infernal Invention would later strike".
Earlier, his research had sought to increase and transform natural electric forces, but critics argued he had drifted into the realms of fantasy. Demoralized, pausing only to look at a picture of a young woman, Richard declares he has "done with inventions!" Elsewhere in Paris a boxer, singer and financier also take time to gaze at pictures of the same woman, Huguette de Vrecourt (Maguenat). They are all her cousins and travel together to her father's estate, where each proposes marriage. Huguette loves Richard, but because her father (Morins) is ruined, tells the four: "I will marry whoever brings me a fortune in three months!" – when the creditors need to be paid. Huguette presses the depressed Richard to compete; he admits he has an idea, but will not speak of it since it is "strange, crazy almost". His thoughts dwell on "those monstrous machines capable of taming the elements and mankind", then he begins to write.
A page of his notes is blown away, to be found by the neighbouring factory owner Hans Steinberg (Ghasne), who Huguette's father considers to be evil, possibly on account of his black hat and black cape. They meet and discuss its contents. Richard enthuses about a device that could rain down fire and death on targeted locations (see Weapons): Steinberg suggests a deal could be struck, but insists on owning the rights to his work, using it as he sees fit. An agreement is made and Richard spends most of his time at Steinberg's house.
We cut back to the confession which describes its narrator's experiments: operating machinery to create storm clouds that release lightning bolts onto the landscape below (see Weather Control).
The financier cousin arrives at the de Vrecourt estate to gleefully inform Huguette that the boxer's and singer's plans have come to nought, the former knocked out in the ring and the latter pelted with fruit on stage; it is now revealed that the financier's machinations are what caused her father's bankruptcy.
Paris newspaper headlines ask "a monster blackmail – or a joke?" when the municipal council receives a message announcing: "If in eighty hours the sum of fifty million is not paid, we will burn an entire neighbourhood of the city." As this is ignored, the threat is carried out, followed by a message from "the Master of the Lightning" demanding the ransom be paid or else the city will be destroyed. The deadline passes, so the narrator operates the machinery: his "derided invention will take its revenge". The Parisian authorities assure everyone the threat is a hoax, the fires that had burned an apartment earlier merely being a coincidental accident: but the lightning comes and Paris is left in ruins (see Disaster), "the revenge of a man once scorned".
Huguette, worried by Richard's prolonged absence, goes to Steinberg's factory: here she finds its printing presses are running off copies of a novel "La Cité Foudroyée" by Richard Gallee. Opening a copy she reads: "20th December 1930. This is my confession. I am the worst criminal of all time ...". Richard appears and explains it is a "scientific novel ... a work of pure imagination" that he began to write after being unable to continue his research: Steinberg is an editor who has given him a contract for 1.5 million francs for this and ten other novels. The couple hug, and later the financier cousin is paid off and brusquely sent on his way.
The film misleads the viewer, resulting in a twist that is a genuine surprise: one of the two main plot threads turns out to concern the writing of a sf novel (clearly incorporating much revenge fantasy), not a Mad Scientist's villainy. The special effects are unremarkable, consisting mainly of dark clouds and burning buildings; the invention comprises a wall with wheels, dials and other paraphernalia attached. The second plot thread in this likable film is the romantic melodrama, with both intentional and unintentional Humour. [SP]
links
previous versions of this entry