The Most Dangerous Sin

The Most Dangerous Sin is the latest attempt to move Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment from novel to movie, and on the whole the result is quite satisfactory, at least in one important respect. Dostoevsky was the greatest master of suspense the literary world has ever known, and this element of the Russian's craft is admirably preserved in the precarious transition to film.

A few of Dostoevsky's characters and settings emerge with much of the brilliance they possessed in the novel, but for the most part, because of obvious time and filming limitations, this is not the case. The most noteworthy of the successes is that of Julien Carette who plays the part of Pierre Marcelin--the film's counter-part of Dostoevsky's unforgettable Semyon Zaharovitch Marmeladov. In his small role, Carette is funny, ridiculous in the grand Dostoevskian manner and yet elicits the viewer's pity and affection with his overwhelmingly human predicament.

Unfortunately, other transitions are not so effective. The characters of Pyotr Petrovitch Luhzin and Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigailov, who ranks with Smerdyakov of The Brother's Karamazov as Dostoevsky's most frightening embodiments of evil, are merged into one person, Antoine Monestier, played by Bernard Blier. Blier handles the job fairly well, but fails to capture Svidrigailov's essense, largely because of the necessary omission of the dream sequences which are so important in the novel.

The main characters, Lili (Sonia), Rene Brunel (Raskolnikov), Nicole Brunel (Dounia) and Inspecteur Gallet (Porfiry), act their way through the famous intellectual-kills-pawnbroker-and-suffers plot with a considerable degree of accomplishment. Robert Hossein as Rene seems to suffer a bit too dramatically but this is probably in the novel and becomes grating only when it actually has to be seen on the screen. Marina Vlady is properly wistful and ineffectual as Lili, the embodiment of the beautiful soul who becomes a prostitute to feed the family which her stepfather has deserted, and Ulla Jacobssen is excellent in the less demanding role of Nicole Brunel, Rene's sister.

Besides Dostoevsky's suspenseful plot, Jean Gabin is the element which makes Sin as successful as it is. The part of Insepctor Gallet is tailor made for the smooth, stony-faced Gabin, and he plays it to perfection, although a bit differently from the way Dostoevsky probably envisioned it. Gabin is the cever cop par excellence, and in the manner familiar to anyone who saw Inspecteur Maigret or Razzia, he steals the show.

At the end of the novel Dostoevsky refers to Raskolnikov's "gradual regeneration," all, of course, through great suffering. The movie ends with a church hymn being sung in the background as Rene is led away in the police van. Lili is looking on, with tears in her eyes and an angelic smile on her face. This latter is more visually absurd than the former, but both are intellectually unsatisfactory in the way they warp the entire story to fit it to an artificial ending.

However, Crime and Punishment, despite its weak ending, is one of the greatest novels ever written, and likewise The Most Dangerous Sin is far better than its soggy climax--in all, one of the best French films to come to the Brattle in quite a while.