Cheap Chase

By J.S.

MR. KLEIN

Directed by Joseph Losey Screenplay by Franco Salinas

A face fills the screen, shot in extreme closeup. We see eyes, a nose, a mouth; not enough, for the moment, to decide age or sex. The eyes are wide open, perhaps in wonder, perhaps in horror. Now we see the fingers of a second person palpating the flesh of this face, neither gently nor roughly, folding back the upper lip to examine the teeth; turning the head to inspect the lobe of an ear. The camera draws back, and it is seen that the face is that of a middle-aged woman, naked. The fingers are those of a white-coated man who seems to be a doctor. This man now speaks, dictating notes to a secretary: "Lower lip fleshy . . . prognathous jaw typical of non-European races ... could well belong to the Semitic race . . . case doubtful."

This is Paris in 1942. The German occupying forces have increased the harassment of Jews, and a major crackdown clearly is coming. Citizens who cannot produce baptismal certificates proving the Christianity of all four grandparents must queue up at physiognomy clinics, where quacks measure noses and cheekbones to spy out the Jewish taint.

The opening scene of Mr. Klein establishes the unforgettable obscenity of this horror. What is incredible is that the remainder of the film, which won prizes in France, sleazily exploits the viewer's dread and revulsion to keep in motion the stage machinery of a claptrap thriller.

The title figure, played irresolutely by Alain Delon, is a smug and fashionable art dealer who victimizes fleeing Jews by paying low prices for their treasures. Then this profitable squeeze comes to an end when he learns that, absurdly, he himself is suspected of being a Jew. A bureaucratic mistake, of course, easily cleared up: obviously there is another man, Jewish, who resembles him and unfortunately has the same name. As happens in thrillers, the Delon character decides to track down the second Mr. Klein, and soon becomes entangled in mysterious coincidences. Or is someone trapping him deliberately?

Director Joseph Losey (The Boy with Green Hair) conveys menace with every worn-out Hitchcock device except a creaking door. Delon is summoned to a strange country house, where aristocrats he has never met greet him warmly, and the second Klein's mistress, acted with a shrug by Jeanne Moreau, plays word games with him. Even the other fellow's dog unaccountably (and illogically) takes a liking to him.

If this were simply a chase film, watching Alain Delon's weak face fall apart and his well-clothed body scuttle might be just passable fun. Since it is a film about Jews being shipped to death camps in cattle cars, it is a gross and nearly unbelievable lapse of taste and artistic intelligence.

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