• home
  • index of films
    • index of films featuring maps
    • index of films featuring photography
    • bibliography
  • blogs
    • maps in films
    • choses vues - things seen
    • l'Escalographe
    • the BlowUp moment
  • how to map a film
    • the first maps >
      • Some Maps in Gance's Napoléon
  • Paris
    • 1890s-1909 >
      • firemen in Paris, 1896
      • La Villette c.1896-97
      • Hatot-Breteau 1897
      • Place de l'Opéra
      • Paris 1900
      • French Cancan >
        • the real Paquerette >
          • Paquerettes
      • Alice Guy - Paris locations >
        • Alice Guy in the brothel ...
      • a dangerous street corner
      • Capellani in Paris
      • La Fille du faux-monnayeur
    • 1910-1929 >
      • a gateway out of Paris c.1910
      • L'Enfant de Paris (narrative of an identification)
      • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 1 >
        • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 2 >
          • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 3 >
            • Fantomas Over Paris: episode 4 >
              • Fantomas Over Belgium
      • One Place, Three Films: Fantomas and the French New Wave
      • a staircase in Belleville
      • Vampires Over Paris >
        • Les Vampires 1
        • Les Vampires 2
        • Les Vampires 3
        • Les Vampires 4
        • Les Vampires 5
        • Les Vampires 6
        • Les Vampires, 7
        • Les Vampires 8
        • Les Vampires 9
        • Les Vampires 10
      • Irma Vep posts a letter
      • Inside-Outside: space and light in Judex
      • L'Affaire Barsac
      • neon Paris c.1913
      • electric nights in Paris (and Berlin)
    • 1930-1959 >
      • Quai des Orfèvres
      • Olivia - Audry - 1951
      • Paris Noir: Becker, Dassin, Melville
      • the persistence of graffiti: Paris c.1952
      • Du rififi chez les hommes - reading topotropically >
        • Du rififi chez les hommes - locations identified
      • Het Parijs van Le Ballon rouge
    • the New Wave and after >
      • New Wave places >
        • New Wave Paris >
          • New Wave Newness: architecture in Paris
          • Eric Rohmer in the rue de la Huchette, c.1956
          • Les 400 coups: Paris locations >
            • Baisers volés
          • 'New York Herald Tribune' - Parrish and Godard on the rue de Berri >
            • A bout de souffle (narrative of an identification)
          • the Grisbi connection: Chabrol and Becker
          • Les Bonnes Femmes: sequence by sequence
          • Une femme est une femme: the places documented
          • the boulevard des Italiens
          • Jules et Jim: Paris configured
          • the place of cinema: cinema as location in Vivre sa vie
          • Godard and Melville: the view from the rue Jenner >
            • Melville: more views from the rue Jenner
          • the New Wave in Pigalle c.1963
          • La Peau douce - displaced places
          • Le Bonheur 1965
          • Paris vu par
          • Masculin Féminin
          • The Topography of La Guerre est finie
        • France
      • Le Samourai: places and maps >
        • Un flic: art and artifice
      • Bresson in Paris - Pickpocket
      • Bresson 69-71
      • Every Revolution
      • statues in Godard and Duras
      • Holy Motors >
        • Holy Motors - notes
    • banlieues >
      • Le Canal de Ourcq
      • Ville d'Avray en 1903
      • Three filmmakers in Romainville
      • filmmaking in the Fontainebleau forest
      • Feuillade's lonely villas
      • anarchists in the suburbs c.1912
      • One Church Two Cemeteries: Clouzot and Chabrol at Montfort L'Amaury
      • Feuilladian Franju - Les Yeux sans visage
      • country houses and suburban villas
      • banlieue locations in L'Amour existe
      • the Landru Villa
      • 1 place 2 filmmakers: Rivette & Chabrol in Ermenonville
      • Céline et Julie: what's the address of that house?
      • cinemas in La Petite Voleuse
    • The Stairs: Paris
  • London
    • 1890s-1920s >
      • Lumiere London >
        • Lumière London, bis
      • Robert Paul in London: tour guide and film maker
      • Ultus in Isleworth
      • Cocaine 1922
      • Fu Manchu 1923
    • London Locations >
      • Piccadilly Circus >
        • Piccadilly Circus in films
        • Piccadilly Circus in art
        • Piccadilly Circus in postcards
        • Piccadilly Circus photographed
        • Piccadilly Circus: invisible things
      • Muswell Hill
      • the Arsenal Stadium mysteries
      • Brentford streets on screen
    • the locality of London studios >
      • Early Ealing
      • straight out of Whetstone
      • Walthamstow's studios
    • Sherlock Holmes >
      • some Baker Street irregularities
      • an American Sherlock in London
    • Sojourners + Cosmopolitans >
      • London in French Film >
        • Rififi in London
        • London in London River
      • maps in krimis
      • Kriminal (1966)
      • Kaurismaki's London c. 1989
    • places in Face
  • Geneva
    • Swiss New Wave - shared-world practice
    • Geneva in Swiss New Wave films >
      • SNW Geneva: collective housing
      • SNW Geneva: villas
      • SNW Geneva: bowlings + piscines
    • The Chronology of Le Petit Soldat
    • La Lune avec les dents (Michel Soutter 1966)
    • L'Inconnu de Shandigor (J.-L. Roy 1967)
  • signage, etc.
  • studios, etc.
    • Eclair
    • Eclipse
    • Gaumont >
      • Cité Elgé locations
    • Lumière
    • Lux
    • Pathé >
      • Where's Max >
        • when Harry met Max, and where
        • Max takes the train
      • Bébé victime d'une erreur...
      • Montreuil in Pathe films
      • Pathé police stations
      • Pathé filmmaking in Nice c. 1908
    • studios & the local >
      • Ealing >
        • Kind Hearts and Coronets: suburbia and other places
        • the view from Ealing
  • my local filmmaker
    • The Unfortunate Policeman >
      • Buy Your Own Cherries >
        • The Medium Exposed >
          • The ? Motorist >
            • The Fatal Hand >
              • A Little Bit of Cloth
              • Blind Man's Bluff >
                • Bill Sikes Up-To-Date
    • Walter Booth in Muswell Hill
  • my local cinemas
  • favourites
    • Agnès Varda >
      • Cleo 5-7 - Time
      • Sans toit ni loi >
        • Sans toit ni loi - the 12 tracking shots
        • Mona's postcard collection
    • Alice Guy >
      • Alice Guy + JLG
    • Chris Marker
    • Jacques Rivette >
      • a map of Out 1
      • Le Pont du Nord: locations identified >
        • topographical telescoping in Le Pont du Nord
        • Le Pont du Nord (narrative of an identification)
    • J.-L. Godard >
      • Godardiana
      • A bout de souffle: footnotes to the film >
        • A bout de souffle - the cast list
        • A bout de souffle in colour
      • photographs in Le Petit Soldat
      • Bande à part
      • Paintings in Pierrot le fou
      • sculptures in Made in USA
      • Les Fins de Godard
      • Week End - time, place and cars
      • Bukowski in Sauve qui peut (la vie)
      • Life magazine + Hdc
    • J.-P. Melville
    • Louis Feuillade
    • Max Linder
    • Robert Paul
  • cine-tourists
    • a German tourist in Paris: Le Silence de la mer
    • an American tourist in Paris
    • History Lessons in Rome
  • Nouvelle Vague
    • New Wave Christmas
    • the New Wave and modern art >
      • New Wave Braque
      • New Wave Chagall
      • New Wave Klee
      • New Wave Manet
      • New Wave Miro
      • New Wave Modigliani
      • New Wave Picasso
      • Pierre Alechinsky in Le Joli Mai (1963)
    • New Wave cameos
    • Attal et Zardi
    • Le Signe du Lion: six small things
    • New Wave films in New Wave films
    • Cahiers du Cinéma on screen
  • other things
    • assorted stamps
    • Maps in Books
    • the topographies of La Fille aux yeux d'or
    • place-time in Thérèse Raquin
    • photography >
      • 10 photographs by Brassaï in 3 Paris dancehalls >
        • painters in the rue Blomet
      • Gisèle Freund in Paris >
        • Gisèle Freund in Histoire(s) du cinéma
      • Godard's Histoire(s): photographs of women
      • the photographer as photographer: André Dino with Tati, Truffaut and Chabrol
      • some Simenon book covers
      • films playing at the Moulin Rouge
    • building sites >
      • a building site and some buildings, c.1961 >
        • Jean Ginsberg
      • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: HLM, cités, grands ensembles >
        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: Aubervilliers to Bondy
        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: Drancy to l'île Saint Denis
        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: La Courneuve to Saint Ouen
        • 93 - Seine Saint Denis: Sevran to Villepinte
      • Chateau Gaillard
      • Euston Station
    • investigations >
      • A Remarkable Journey in Zigoto's New Motor-Car - 1912
      • the Hotel Bristol enigma
    • news >
      • French news
      • news from England
      • news from the U.S.
    • a picture of great significance
    • A Girl and a Gun >
      • Griffith, Shadowland, May 1922
  • efc - places
  • contact details
    • directories
    • address books
    • hotel registers
    • envelopes and postcards
    • telegrams
  • family, locality
    • a Succession of Edwards
    • Henri Grieshaber - architecte chaudefonnier
  • about this site
  • Publications
The Cine-Tourist
The Landru Villa


I was looking for suburban villas that might be those we see in films by Feuillade (see here), and amid the many fanciful edifices to be found in the île de France region (see here) I came across postcards showing a very ordinary villa near Gambais, Seine-et-Oise, in what is now les Yvelines. The only thing that distinguishes this villa is that it was the site of murders committed by the serial killer Henri Landru:
Picture
Landru killed seven of his eleven victims in this villa between December 1915 and January 1919. This postcard, judging from the Renault 4CV, is from the 1940s, but souvenir postcards of the villa were already circulating in the early 1920s, not long after Landru's execution in February 1922. Here is a card posted in December of that year:
Picture
The humorous lines appear to have been added from an early date. Here is the same image in 1923, with the poem:
Picture
'To prove that Love is a fire that devours, Landru to his home one day invited them – ardent and joyful, eager to love again! Then the spark flashed! and the stove roared. 
Moral: It is ill-advised to frequent men who have stoves.'

The Moral at the end turns on two puns, firstly, the figurative expression 'il en cuit' includes the verb 'cuire', to cook, and, secondly, 'poêle', for stove, sounds like 'poil', hair. Landru had a striking beard, was 'poilu', and disposed of his victims' bodies by burning them in his stove.

The magazine cover right and the postcard below are in a similar vein:

Picture
Picture
The villa quickly became a tourist attraction.  After the trial it was bought by an entrepreneur who opened a hotel and restaurant, Le Grillon du Foyer, with a museum dedicated to Landru's crimes:
Picture
  
It is now a private residence, though still a draw for murder tourists - see e.g. here. In 1963 it supplied an authentic location for Chabrol's film Landru. The film give several views of the villa's exterior, in particular of the chimneys - smoke from which indicates a body being disposed of:
Other views are of the garden, front and back:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
And we see the field between the villa and the nearby church:
Picture
The use of the actual murder house as a location is related to the film's engagement with authenticity, on a par with the use of the trial transcripts and the insertion at intervals of actuality footage from the war. 
Chabrol's use of war footage invites comparison with another New Wave reconstitution of this period, Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1962). 
Further comparisons arise through similarities, such as the use in both films of freeze frames to fix the image of women, and through striking contrasts, e.g.: black-and-white vs colour; real locations vs studio constructions; the use of works by Picasso (in reproductions) vs the use of (authentic) period bric-à-brac.
 
Landru, who is a dealer in second-hand furniture, paintings and objets d'art, has a storeroom that represents perfectly the film's own acquisitive approach to such objects:
Picture
Picture
The space in which these authentic pieces are assembled is itself, of course, inauthentic, constructed in the studio. 

As befits a crime-cum-courtroom drama, the headlines of newspapers are shown to signal stages in the procedure:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Surprisingly, since there were genuine headlines in the newspapers of 1921 to illustrate the progress of the prosecution, not one of these newspapers is authentic. Every one of  is a confection made for the film.
Newspapers are easy to fake; books less so. When Landru meets the woman who will be his mistress, rather than victim, the book she is reading is a genuine object of the period, Jules Mary's Le Châtiment d'un monstre, first published in 1909:
Picture
On the other hand, when Landru walks past a man putting up a poster for a film, the object is anachronistic, since the film in question, Metro-Goldwyn's So This Is Marriage?, dates from 1924:
Picture
Picture
I have not noticed any other lapses of the kind.

At the same time as it as it aspires to period authenticity, Chabrol's film revels in the artificiality of period reconstruction. Charles Denner's bald head and tailored beard are accurate but patently false:
Picture
Picture
The interiors, though no doubt assembled from authentic elements, foreground gaudy artifice:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Looking back in 1995, Chabrol commented: 'It was filmed entirely in the studio, with Jacques Saulnier as designer and Charles Mérangel as decorator [other sources give Georges Houssaye as set decorator]. There were eighty different décors, some of which were just backdrops, where everything depended on the furniture. It was highly stylised, there was just enough to fill the frame, nothing more.' Positif  'hors série: Cinéma et mobilier' (décembre 1995), p.54.

Several of the film's studio-created sets make no attempt to pass for real places. Some are, rather, evocations of how early cinema registered or staged reality. The artisan on the right, here, seems to have walked into the film from the platform at La Ciotat:
Picture
Picture
L'Arrivée d'un train (Lumière 1896)
Chabrol's fake railway carriage travels through a real landscape exactly as, sixty years before, a fake railway carriage in a Pathé scène grivoise had travelled through a real landscape:
Picture
Picture
Landru sleeps in his cell like the condemned man in Zecca's 1901 Histoire d'un crime or, here,  Méliès's Les Incendiaires (1906):
Picture
Picture
And the site of Landru's execution, if it is modelled on the real prison at Versailles, also has as model the sites of execution constructed by Méliès and Zecca in their studios - as here, in La Vie d'un joueur (1903):
Picture
Picture

Despite Chabrol's claim that everything was filmed in the studio, there are a number of real locations in Landru. The film returns several times to the Jardin du Luxembourg, and there are at least six further exteriors, in and outside of Paris:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
And of course there is the villa, where this post began. Like the locations above, the Landru villa is a real place embedded in an artificial world, but it is different because of its connection to the real events - because it appears also in press photographs documenting those real events:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Despite the effort made to use this authentic location, the film is not preoccupied by its authenticity. Over its real but dull exterior the film privileges, rather, those decorative but false interiors created by Saulnier and Mérangel, making very clear a preference for art over reality: