Leofwine_draca SEVEN THUNDERS is a long-forgotten wartime effort that shines a light on one of the darkest events to befall Vichy France. The story is set in the slums of Marseilles, where one particular district provides a haunt for Jews and British hiding out from their Nazi oppressors who are always on the hunt for them. The upshot being that the slums were eventually dynamited, by the Nazis as depicted in this movie.This film is something of a ponderous effort that could do with a bit more suspense in order to keep the slow pace from flagging. The huge tableau of characters means that it's difficult to get to know any one in particular, or indeed sympathise with the individual. Stephen Boyd has something of an action man role, brawling with a Nazi goon on a rooftop in one stand-out action scene, and the rest is a muddle of romantic moments, plot twists, and some mild horror elements. James Robertson Justice is cast against type as a sinister doctor with a fine line in murder and disposing of the bodies of his victims in the quicklime he keeps in the cellar!

robert-temple-1 This is a remarkable film based upon the horrific true events of January 1943 when the Nazis and their lapdogs the Vichy French dynamited and destroyed the entire First Arondissement of Marseilles, the area known as the Old Port of Marseilles. A great deal of real documentary footage of the buildings being blown up is incorporated into this dramatic film, so the result is terrifyingly convincing, and it reminds us of what is happening today in some of the cities of Syria. The 'seven thunders' of the original film title SEVEN THUNDERS presumably refer to the explosions, though the phrase does not occur in the film dialogue, and the title is never overtly explained on screen. This film has now been released on DVD under its original title and is no longer called THE BEASTS OF MARSEILLES. The story is based upon a novel by Rupert Croft-Cooke (1903-1979). He was a gay man who used to hang out at the Fitzroy Tavern in London's Fitzrovia, where Nina Hamnett and the other artistic and literary Bohemians were often be found in the 1950s, along with Tambimuttu and those two well-known gays, Sir John Waldron and Sir Francis Rose (my wife and I knew the last-named three but never met Hamnett or, knowingly, Croft-Cooke; Francis was Gertrude Stein's 'Rose is a Rose is a Rose', by the way, though it is surprising how few people seem to know that, imagining that she was speaking of a flower). The lead female role in this film is played by the French actress Anna Gaylor. She is by far the best thing in the film, as her charming, cheeky gamine persona lights up the screen. And that took some doing, because Stephen Boyd as the male lead is rather dull and uninspired beside her. At this time Gaylor was 25 and is still with us today, aged 79, having appeared in 121 films, and this one was only her third feature film, as her career only started the year before, in 1956. This film must have boosted her career a lot, as she is so cute she is really irresistible. Even Stephen Boyd cannot resist her, and for a block of wood, that says something. There is a weird sub-plot to this story, in which a psychotic murderer pretends to help Jews and others escape the Vichy police. He is played by James Robertson Justice with a creepy urbanity. It is his habit to offer a glass of drugged cognac to fugitives. Then they fall asleep, he takes their money, and carries them to the basement where he dissolves their bodies in quicklime. Quick lime, quick fortune. He lives in a very well-furnished house indeed, full of valuable antiquities earned from his ghastly career. He is keen to murder his 100th victim. Will he live long enough to reach his target number? He reminds me of the quiet murderer portrayed by Jules Romains in his MEN OF GOOD WILL series of novels. Such people always send a chill up one's spine, or down one's spine, depending upon temperament and whether one is standing on one's head or not. I suppose that some yogis in that position have descending rather than ascending kundalini, but Pātanjāli does not discuss that technicality. There is an odd feature to this film, however, and I must call attention to it. All the 'bad guys' who destroy the Old Port are shown as Germans in uniform. But the truth is entirely different. Try typing 'Battle of Marseille' into Google and go to that entry in Wikipedia, and you will see what I mean. (They leave the 's' off Marseilles, not sure why.) What really happened is that this was all done by the Vichy French police, who were more eager to kill Jews than the Gestapo themselves, and who grovelled on their bellies to the Nazis like the slimy worms they were. Their motto seems to have been: 'Whom can we kill for you today, can't you think of someone? Heil Hitler! Let me lick your jackboots!' Why was all of this omitted from the film and German soldiers substituted instead? The entire idea was carried out by the revolting traitor, René Bousquet, who was such a close chum of Francois Mitterand that he used to visit him for chats about the good old days after Mitterand became President of France. Mitterand, who posed as a socialist to gain power, had been a keen Vichy official working for the Nazis. No hypocrisy there, surely! 120 French police inspectors travelled from Paris to supervise the work and altogether 12,000 French police implemented the plan. 30,000 French people were forcibly evacuated from their homes, 2,000 arrested and send to the death camps, and 1,500 buildings were blown up in a single day, most of them containing the possessions of the ousted inhabitants. And all this was done by the French, willingly and enthusiastically, not by the Nazis themselves. The depths of evil, treachery, and betrayal against their fellow countrymen by the Vichy authorities laid the basis for the fantastic immorality and corruption of modern French business and politics. The French people know this, and that is why the French thrillers such as TELL NO ONE (2006, see my review) always have a corrupt politician or sinister state plot in the background. The fact is that the French people do not trust those in authority over them and have not done so since Vichy, and with good reason. After all, when you end up with a supposedly left-wing President who was really a Vichy traitor, and when you narrowly avoid having the appalling and now disgraced Strauss-Kahn as President, not to mention the most snobbish man in France, Giscard d'Estaing, also as a past President, what hope is there? But why were the Vichy French crimes suppressed in this film? That is a very good question.

nixonkg-1 Many films have ambiguous titles, but why "Seven Thunders"? Was this the title of the book from which this film was derived? Can anyone explain? Did I miss something in this slow and ponderous film? The whole storyline did not ring true. Where were the escapees going to from Marseilles? Spain would seem the obvious choice. Was this in fact an actual escape route for Allied POWs from Italy? The film was interesting from the fact that a lot of it was shot on location, but overall it was a very disappointing use of a talented cast! Interesting to see Stephen Boyd in an early screen role. Sad that his career appeared to peter out and that he died young.

Robert J. Maxwell Steven Boyd and his friend, Tony Wright, have escape from a German POW camp during World War II and have made their way to Marseilles, where they find temporary shelter in the shabby apartment of a sympathizer. The apartment is shabby because it's in the Old Quarter of Marseilles, and ALL of the Old Quarter is made up on tiny crooked streets and decrepit buildings.Boyd and Wright are initially intent on getting out of Marseilles and back to their own lines but things get a little complicated when Boyd takes up with a sassy blond a la gamin and Wright strikes up a friendship with a middle-aged married lady who is, like Wright himself, a Londoner. The Nazi occupiers mostly avoid the Old Quarter because it's corrupt and dangerous. Too many soldiers sneak off to the whorehouse or decide to desert or simply disappear. Boyd and a fat, ugly, unambiguously mean Nazi soldier have a clumsy fist fight on the slate roof top and somebody falls to his death. Not even THAT scene is well handled. The decision is made by the Gestapo to remove all the residents and blow up the Old Quarter with dynamite. How can Boyd, Wright, and the blond escape? DO they escape when the buildings start to blow? Guess.That's narrative thread Number One, and it's neither exciting nor suspenseful. There's a lot of banter and flirting. An air of pointlessness seems to hang over the story of Boyd and Buddies. Why don't they get on with it? Narrative threat Number Two occupies much less screen time but is far more interesting, a kind of horror story embedded in this otherwise dull production. An elderly Jewish dentist is marooned in Marseilles. He roots around and finds an entrepreneur, James Robertson Justice, who promises to see that he reaches a free country, and there will be no charge for the service. But the dentist must convert all his currency (quite a lot, actually) into gold and bring it with him for safe keeping.The old dentist does as he's told and shows up at the appointed time with a bag full of savings in Justice's apartment. All along, Justice has been brusque but now he offers his guest a glass of cognac in celebration of the occasion. Finally relaxed, the dentist asks conversationally what Justice does for a living. Fregonese's camera dollies in to make sure we realize how important this revelation is when Justice replies, "I am a murderer." Justice then explains that, having drunk the wine, the old Jew is expiring even now. He's the 96th victim. He'll be buried in the cellar in a pit of lime and will be forgotten shortly, while Justice will keep the gold and be eight thousand pounds richer. With an evil grin, Justice asks if he might hasten the dentist's inevitable demise and offers him more of the poisoned wine. A chilling scene.But the two narrative threads hardly touch one another. Boyd and troupe do the expected -- barely -- while Justice dies without adumbration in a stupid car accident.A lot of people seem to have enjoyed this rambling tale with its slight point, so you might want to give it a try.