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'Army of Shadows': A tale of guts, not glory

Not since the customers at Rick's Cafe stood up as one and drowned out the Nazi singalong with the "Marseillaise" has a movie so compellingly captured the bruised-but-not-beaten spirit of free France that refused to give in to Hitler and the puppet government in Vichy.

But "Casablanca" is fiction, and romantic fiction at that. Jean-Pierre Melville's superb "Army of Shadows" is fiction, too, but it's based in fact, and romantic is probably the last word you'd apply to this recovered classic.

Rialto Films 'Army of Shadows' (L'Armée des ombres) A- The verdict: An opportunity to see a lost masterpiece. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Starring: Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Claude Mann Run time: 145 minutes Release date: Sept. 12, 1969 Rating: Not rated, but there is war-time violence. Language: In French with English subtitles On the web Official movie site Rate 'Army of Shadows'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

"Army of Shadows" is the opposite of rousing, and therein lies its power. This is a story of guts, not glory, of men and women in the French Resistance who devoted their lives to living in shadows — and gave their lives in anonymity while their countrymen tried to pretend it was life as usual under all those Nazi banners draped around Paris.

Made in 1969 but just now being given an American release — with the usual restoration touch-ups — the French drama is a masterwork of suspense, atmosphere and expert ensemble acting. Further, Melville knew the territory: He was in the Resistance during World War II, as was Joseph Kessel, on whose novel the screenplay is based.

Melville, who died in 1973, specialized in taut, bleak gangster noirs, like "Bob le Flambeur" and "The Red Circle." He brought that same gritty punch, that minimalist fatalism, to this film. At a time when Hollywood was churning out bloated World War II spectaculars that relied on explosions, machine guns and flashy heroics, "Army of Shadows" offered a study of quiet courage and of a rigid code of honor that dictated everyone was expendable for the greater good.

Episodic in nature, the movie piles escapes, executions, interrogations and improvised strategies one on top of the other. The great Lino Ventura, with his ferocious nose and tough-guy demeanor, plays a bespectacled, seemingly mild-mannered engineer who, when called on, can gut a young German guard in a matter of seconds. His team incudes Jean-Pierre Cassel (father of Vincent), a dashing figure in a pilot's jacket whose raffish style — leaving his companion sitting at the bar, he notes, "I said 'five minutes,' but she'd wait a lifetime" — masks his daring and commitment. By the end, he may be the unlikeliest hero of all.

Another member is the redoubtable and legendary Simone Signoret as a housewife whose husband and daughter know nothing of her clandestine activities. She's also a mistress of disguise, a jut-jawed Red Cross nurse one moment, a flame-haired floozy the next.

Some contrasts border on the absurd. Ventura and his big boss, played by Paul Meurisse, hitch a ride on a sub to London, where Gen. De Gaulle pins a medal on Meurisse's chest, and later they see "Gone With the Wind." Then Ventura, summoned back by an emergency, gets on a plane and parachutes back into France; before that, he'd never so much as jumped off a ladder.

Part of what makes the film so powerful is you never know friend from foe — who will betray you, who will help you out. Fleeing the Gestapo, Ventura ducks into a barber shop that has a pro-Vichy poster prominently displayed on the wall. Will the barber help him or betray him?

Everything in "Army of Shadows" looks like it was shot in a cold, gray drizzle. An otherwise charming farmhouse comes off as desolate and wounded. Chilly village streets are punctuated by pale, washed-out bits of sun.

"The silence of the good" of which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke so movingly is stunningly apparent here. This memorable movie movingly pays tribute to those who chose not to remain silent, to those ordinary men and women who chose to do extraordinary things ... from the shadows.