LES CINQ GENTLEMEN MAUDITS (1920)
aka Five Doomed Gentlemen
Article 4573 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2014
Directed by Luitz-Morat and Pierre Regnier
Featuring Luitz-Morat, Pierre Regnier, Andre Luguet
Country: France
What it is: Thriller

When five gentlemen humiliate a merchant in a Tunisian bazaar, the latter curses them, telling them the order of their deaths within a given time frame. The men begin to die in the order they were chosen…

This title ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but I was pointed to a cut-down print of the movie that broke it up into ten episodes; the whole thing probably runs about twenty-five minutes; I’m assuming the full version is lost. It seems to tell the full story, but as is often the case with cut-down versions, the story points are rushed and the emotional impact is somewhat damaged by this; furthermore, the action in the final episode is somewhat confusing. Still, it’s nice to see a version of the story with a translation; I’ve seen the 1931 version, but had trouble following it due to the lack of English titles. All in all, I quite enjoyed this version.