Because Marcel Carné made Les Visiteurs du Soir in Nazi-occupied France, and because it’s about a realm invaded by the The Devil’s Envoys (the English title), it’s often seen as allegorical. Carné denied it to the end of his life. But his film works perfectly well as an allegory as long as you stop there – the invasion bit. Go any further and the comparison will not hold.
Set in a 15th-century France of doublet and hose and conical hats, it follows a couple of the devil’s representatives, who have been sent to Earth disguised as minstrels to create mayhem. Dominique (Arletty) and Gilles (Alain Cluny) arrive at the court of Baron Hugues (Fernand Ledoux), whose daughter Anne (Marie Déa) is on the verge of marrying Baron Renaud (Marcel Herrand), and set about beguiling everyone with their playing and singing.
Then they go one step further. After stopping time, Gilles inserts himself into the affections of Anne – who has been temporarily released from suspended animation – while Dominique goes to work on the two barons, Renaud and Hugues. The nefarious plan hits a bump when Gilles is caught off guard by the purity of Anne, and falls in love with her. At this point the Devil (Jules Berry), clearly exasperated at the mess his two envoys are making of things, decides he needs to intervene him, and arrives to sort things out.
The performances are perfect. Arletty, initially playing a man (confusingly) but eventually revealing herself to be a woman, is all haughty and teasing disregard as Dominique. Cluny is the handsome, square-headed romantic Gilles. Berry, when he turns up, injects the whole thing with a fidgety, cackling, rasping energy and is the best thing in it – a sinister and charming Devil dressed in a costume that’s half pierrot, half malevolent Medici. None of the others matter too much, though Marie Déa is a plausible virginal Anne.
Comparisons are often made between this film and Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, from four years later. Supernatural intercession features in both, as does the stopping of time. Love across an impossible divide makes them thematically similar, and the courtly manners of the spirit guide in A Matter of Life and Death aren’t a very long way from those of the Devil, once he turns up.
Was it a conscious lifting of ideas? Quite possibly. Michael Powell was a great admirer of the films of Carné, in particular his Children of Paradise, which was made the year before Powell and Pressburger’s film. Powell also knew the studio where Les Visiteurs du Soir was shot, Victorine Studios in Nice. There, as a teenager in the 1920s, he worked as a runner for director Rex Ingram. So more than just an incidental connection there.
All that said, Les Visiteurs du Soir also sits snugly alongside the cod medievaliism of Hollywood – The Adventures of Robin Hood or Danny Kaye’s The Court Jester.
It being a Carné film, it looks exquisite, especially if you’re watching a copy based on the 2011 2K restored version (the Criterion one, for instance). The image is bright and sharp and has great contrast. Occasional losses of focus are clearly original technical errors – the focus puller got their measurements wrong and it wasn’t considered serious enough to reshoot. The sound is a touch boxy, but no worse than any other 1940s movie.
The production design and costumes are fabulous, and Carné and his DP Roger Hubert demonstrate their mastery of beauty lighting. You can watch this film as an example of actors walking into and out of pre-arranged positions – so they look their absolute best. The close-ups are gorgeous little portraits.
As craft is put in the service of art, devilish chicanery is trumped in the end by love. Lovely to watch, and a feelgood experience. All is right with the world.
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
