Georges Franju's Thérèse Desqueyroux (1962)

 

The story of a would-be killer wife (by poison) (Emmanuelle Riva as Thérèse Desqueyroux), whose husband Bernard (Philippe Noiret) allows her case to be dismissed to save appearances, doesn't divorce her but sends her to Paris, only to appear as his 'wife' on special occasions is of course well known from the famous novel of the same name by François Mauriac (1927). This is set in the author's south-west and is an austere tale of two people who in effect destroy each other mentally. Moving. This film was later readapted in Claude Miller's 2012 starring Audrey Tautou, although I've yet to see that.

Georges Franju's La Tête contre les murs | Head Against the Wall | The Keepers (1959)

La Tête contre les murs is based on Hervé Bazin's novel of the same name, and it was originally Jean-Pierre Mocky's idea to direct this as his first film, although it was decided than Franju would direct it, with Mocky playing the main role of François. Upper-middle-class François has no educational qualifications, has spent money recklessly and has considerable debts. To get out of the mess he steals his father's money and burns some valuable papers out of spite. His father catches him in the act and has him put in a psychiatric hospital, where he is an extremely frustrated sane person amidst the mad.

He meets Heurtevent (Charles Aznavour), who is also sane but just epileptic. Heurtevent has been imprisoned in the hospital for years and is beginning to depair that he will never leave the hospital. The two make an escape, but Heurtevant has a fit, they are caught, and in desperation Heurtevent hangs himself. Stéphanie (Anouk Aimée) is an acquaintance who comes to visit him, who knows that there is nothing wrong with him, and on his second escape he goes to her flat: unfortunately he is caught again: it seems there is no escape. It's easy to see why this story criticising institutionalisation – physical and chemical strait jackets being used as forms of control – appealed to the rebel Mocky.

Georges Franju's Les Yeux sans visage | Eyes without a face (1960)

This film is adapted from horror novelist Jean Redon's eponymous 1959 novel. Dr Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is a famous plastic surgeon determined (clandestinely) to graft a face onto his daughter Christiane (Edith Scob), whose face has been horrifically disfigured in an accident in a car he was driving. Génessier has a laboratory on his property and carries out experiments on his many dogs, and it is not very far from here that his assistant Louise finds an unsuspecting girl whose face he removes and grafts onto that of his daughter, who has been wearing a mask to hide her disfigurement, and who everyone else believe to be dead. It is this part that people have presumably found the most horrifying, although by today's standards this is nothing: what may have seemed like a horror film sixty years ago now looks more like a film filled with poetic beauty.

To his and Christiane's misfortune the new skin tissue begins to deteriorate and Génessier is forced to find a new victim. And this new victim Christiane will take pity on, will free of her bonds before the operation, kill her father's assistant, set the dogs free to savage her father, and walk off into the night.

Despite the age of the film its power is still extremely very strong, and it is obvious why this has become a cult film.