Until the Last One (1957) User Reviews (4)

The place is a real circus today.

[dbdumonteil · 7/10 · 30 August 2007]

(the new barker to the acrobat)

-Can I have a trailer door key?

-What for?There's nothing to steal in here!

The new barker is actually a gangster who has double-crossed his accomplices and has hidden a part of loot in the trailer.He has taken refuge in a seedy circus where a gypsy is spying on him.Besides his angry ex-pals are not far either.

Raymond Pellegrin and a young Jeanne Moreau team up again after Henri Decoin's "Les Intrigantes" (1954).They get good support from a very good cast which includes Mouloudji,Paul Meurisse (many people saw him in "les Diaboliques"),Howard Vernon and Jacques Dufilho.Michel Audiard, as usual,provides the movie with fine lines and Pierre Billon's directing is effective.A true film noir with lots of dead bodies .

Mijanou Bardot,Brigitte's sister, plays the circus owner's daughter.

"Beside barking for the parade,You've got to make yourself useful."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 17 September 2018]

After watching The Film Noir The She Wolves,I began looking for another one of the four films starring Jeanne Moreau from 1957. Searching online for the other 3,I found out that I had (unknowingly) gotten hold of one of the Moreau titles! This led to me going onto the next one, until the last one.

View on the film:

Staying away from the crowds, co-writer/(with Michel Audiard and André Duquesne) director Pierre Billon adaptation of Duquesne's novel goes behind the scenes of the Big Top, which whilst lacking the freaky vibes of fellow circus Noir Nightmare Alley (1947) does have a fitting Film Noir seediness, as ex-prisoner Bastia finds the same double dealing and slippery use of money he experienced in his gang and prison. Attacking it with the same fury Bastia gets from his old buddies, the writers take spiteful jabs at the main threat to cinema of the era: TV. In less than subtle swings, the circus crew openly lament how the circus being screened on TV has led to it losing all the spotlights,and becoming low-rent.

Rolling up out of jail, Raymond Pellegrin gives a grubby performance as Bastia-who shoves anyone to the ground who does not follow his old rogue habits, that even rub abrasively when Pellegrin has Bastia try to show a little tenderness towards Gina. Catching the eyes of the crowd and her fellow performers, Jeanne Moreau gives a sweet turn as Gina. Appearing playful when first meeting Bastia, Moreau gets Gina's hands to grasp in desperation to free Bastia from his old friends. Clawing Bastia with the debt of betrayal he left Paul Meurisse's towering Ricioni holding,Billon & cinematographer Pierre Petit set the Film Noir fireworks off with winding shots round the side streets Bastia and Ricioni try to hide from sight, lit by a final blaze of smoke and fire,until the last one fades.

Decent minor film, worth a look

[mackjay2 · 6/10 · 26 October 2018]

Fairly diverting minor French crime drama featuring young Jeanne Moreau and Paul Meurisse. The setting lends the film some interest, a seedy traveling circus. A convict just let out of prison heads there to hide out from his old crime partners who think he has their money. Various alliances form and some excitement is generated, but nothing about it is really memorable, unless you count the silent boy and his dog who witness a lot of the action on the circus grounds. It's easy to see why the films of Becker, Melville and a few others stand out in the same period. Meurisse in fact, did impressive work with Melville later on, while Moreau was on the verge of international stardom.

A neat little French noir

[tony-70-667920 · 7/10 · 27 February 2022]

Fernand (Raymond Pellegrin) has stolen 14 million francs that the gang led by Ricioni (Paul Meurisse) stole in Marseille, and he tries to hide from the gang in a circus where his sister ( a pre-"Zorba" Lila Kedrova) is the fortune teller. The boss hires him as a barker, dancer Gina (Jeanne Moreau) falls for him and the gypsy Quedchi (Moulodji , star of Cayatte's "Nous sommes tous les assasssins") , having seen Fernand's gun, shows an unhealthy interest. You just know it won't end well.

There are many things wrong with the script, though Michel Audiard's dialogue, as sharp as usual, isn't among them. The circus clearly wasn't a great place to hide, as the gang trace Fernand all too easily. Cinquo, the penny-pinching boss of the circus, hires Fernand as a barker without a trial: he's useless and Cinquo has to do the job himself, Quedchi is supposed to have been a trapeze artist who quit after a bad fall, but he has absolutely no difficulty in walking. Finally, it's baffling that the circus includes a ballet dancer, a fortune teller, a magician and a stripper. Obviously French circuses are, or were , very different from those in other countries. Despite all these quibbles I still enjoyed the film considerably.

I bought the DVD because of the cast. Pellegrin and Meurisse often play bad lots, and they don't disappoint. Moreau was still young and lovely, ditto Jacqueline Noelle as Ricioni's prostitute girlfriend. Howard Vernon, the German officer in Melville's "La Silence de la Mer" here plays a trapeze artist. I can't recall seeing Jacques Dufilho in any film before "Le Crabe -Tambour" (1977), and had to check the cast list to see that he played the well-built, thuggish Pepe, Ricioni's sidekick. Also it was hard to believe that Mijanou Bardot, so delightful the following year in "Une balle dans le canon", was the same girl playing Cinquo's rather wan daughter.

I hadn't heard of the director, Pierre Billon. He made this an excellent noir, which owes a certain debt to "The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Killing', though we never see the heist which kick-starts the action. I particularly liked the occasional shots of the little boy and his dog, their innocence providing a nice contrast to the crooks' greed, and hope to see more of Billon's films, particularly "L'homme au chapeau rond" with Raimu. I can't understand why "Jusqu'au dernier", made when he was only 56, was Billon's last film. Was he, perhaps, done in by the Cahiers mob? I'd certainly rather see anything of his than one of Jean-Luc Godawful's efforts.