Review: THIS MAN IS DANGEROUS / CET HOMME EST DANGEREUX! The best Lemmy Caution movie!

 

In the second installment of the adventures of Eddi Constantine—uh, sorry, Lemmy Caution, Jean Sacha, a disciple of Orson Welles and former director of the very interesting 1947 Fantomas movie, takes a seat in the director's chair. And visually it shows, but there is little time to take in some very beautiful camerawork by Marcel Weiss and Leo Mirkine as the viewer has to fully concentrate on the plot that is very convoluted, and the pace of the movie is breathtaking. A lot of active brain work is demanded to get the connections, which is part of the fun of this movie, so here is the plot:

Constance and Segella are pretty convinced that Lemmi
is one of them...

"Caution! This man is dangerous!" echoes through the chambers of Interpol as Lemmy builds up a "fake" reputation for being the toughest and most cynical criminal around. Of course, he is still part of the FBI, but tough and cynical nevertheless. 

It's all about American millionaire daughter Miranda van Zelten who likes it dangerous and has fun jet-setting and gambling on shady offshore yachts. Which makes her an easy target for potential kidnappers. One of those is mobster chief Goyas who happens to have killed a colleague of Lemmy. Lemmy is out for revenge and sex and nonchalantly kills Goyas on his ship, and grabs a girl. That girl, of course, is Miranda who was just about to be abducted on that ship after the gambling session. 

Lemmi and Miranda on the ship

Miranda falls hard for Lemmy who is perfectly inclined to be of whatever services she desires. Leaving her in her hotel, Lemmy runs into a former one-night stand named Constance who lures him into her flat with some good whisky. At her flat, though, Eddi is outnumbered by the full gang of Segella who had set up a trap with Constance. Segella offers Eddi a deal that he should lure Miranda (the target) into a trap to kidnap her. Eddi seems to agree, and as he is figuring out how to get out of this he is expected in his hotel room by Dora, the now widowed girlfriend of Goyas, who is out to kill him. Eddi overpowers her physically and mentally and animalsexualattractionwiseally and they strike the deal to kidnap Miranda. 

Lemmy and Dora

So Eddi has got to get Miranda out of two competing kidnapping schemes he himself had planned with two competing gangster mobs.

The problem here is that Miranda has a will of her own and comes and leaves as she pleases with a certain fondness for difficult situations. And in this case, Segella has a huge advantage, as Miranda's personal secretary Suzanne is working for him - until she meets Lemmy of course.

As it all boils down, Dora is eventually killed but had evidence against Segella that the surviving gang members now give to Lemmy so that the script can get rid of them. The final showdown proves Lemmy's last words in the movie: "The women are much more dangerous."

Show-down time: Lemmi vs. Segella who -interestingly-
is always wearing white leather gloves

This is a very, very good movie. If you can keep track, everything falls into place as the script is good. The dialogue is really witty and less obviously dad-humor-like than in the other Caution movies. This is very intelligently made and tickles your brain synapses out of their retirement. 

The director is not ashamed to directly break the fourth wall: Lemmy, the US-citizen meets Miranda, the US-citizen on the ship, and she starts talking to him in English. His reply: "Switch to French, doll. We don't have subtitles in this movie; they cannot understand you!" The script is basically an endless barrage of such one-liners.

This is paired by some very cool voice-over, and Constantine does even sing (along to his own record playing on the radio). Camera work is very good, with lots of cool personal POV shots that mix very well with Lemmy's narration. The fight scenes are expertly shot and look highly realistic.

Constance following Miranda's car. One of several 
stand-out shots.

The stand-out "feature", though is Lemmy's unapologetic approach towards women. As he considers them to be more dangerous than him, he is not ashamed to use hard physical violence on them if need be. I have yet to encounter a movie where women were beaten and slapped in the face more often than in this one. But the "dames don't care" and so we do get a very long wet-dress cat-fight between Miranda and Constance at the end. Thank you. 

Miranda and Constance

No wonder this movie was a success and cemented Lemmy Caution as a box-office attraction. It is very easy to see where the James Bond movies drew their inspiration from. This movie is full of shots that would be used later with Sean Connery as a Eddi Constantine double. I was not expecting this.

Absolutely quintessential film for any lover of movie history. Director Sacha sadly did not  do another Lemmy Caution film, but he did an OSS 117-one later. And you can be very sure that that one (OSS IS NOT DEAD) is high on my list of movies to get.