A remake of André Hugon's 1922 silent movie,"Diamant Noir" is a complicated melodrama ,with as many implausibilities as in "magnificent obsession" ,but without Sirk's (or even Stahl's) talent.Made during the Occupation days ,it bears the appropriate scars of the time.Gaby Morlay portrays here the woman as she should be : a person who had to be devoted to children,who had to help the others without asking anything for herself in return,who could love but who had to to give up if her love was not shared ;she was either a teacher (in "Diamant Noir" ) or a nanny (in the most significant work of the era :" Le Voile Bleu"(1942) later remade as "Blue Veil" by Curtis Bernardt in 1951).
Mademoiselle Marthe (in the silent movie she was only "Fraulein" ,but such a demeaning part could only that of a French woman in 1941 ) is not supposed to have a life of her own.Around her,people have affairs ,discover their lover cheated on them,fall in love ...
A wealthy man's (Charles Vanel)wife (Louise Carletti) dies in a car crash;she is survived by him and their daughter (played by Louise Carletti's daughter in real life) and soon the father learns (through letters he "was supposed to burn after my death" ) he's not his daughter's father.He can't forgive and ,as he cannot stand her anymore,he sends her to a convent.
The young girl grows up into a beautiful woman (played by Louise Carletti):the canticle in the church is a good directing trick.But she falls in love with her dad's best friend who of course could be her father too,whereas as a child she loved a boy who wanted to be in the Navy.But there are more unexpected twists to come..
Made by Jean Delannoy ,whose works were (often unfairly) panned by the New Wave ."Diamant Noir" cannot be considered one of his achievements.
