Charles Vanel's gruff authority matters most when it begins to fail. We rate his sober, economical acting highly, especially in The Wages of Fear, where the shame of being frightened is as troubling as the danger.
Fi1m perspective
In The Wages of Fear (1953), Charles Vanel makes Mr. Jo's efforts to look dependable almost as worrying as the nitroglycerine. Alongside Yves Montand's Mario Livi, he shows how much a man's confidence can depend on having another man believe in it. Fear is embarrassing here, especially when someone else might notice. We grew anxious watching Jo, because Vanel lets us see the effort of appearing capable without reassuring us that he is.
That authority had plenty of employment before Clouzot. Villains and supporting parts recurred in his silent films of the 1920s, followed by greater prominence in the 1930s with Raymond Bernard and Jacques Feyder. He played Inspector Javert opposite Harry Baur in Bernard's Les Misérables (1934). Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) placed him alongside Jean Gabin. The rumbling voice and focused gaze made him a natural choice for policemen, patriarchs and criminals, but the vulnerability beneath the gruffness gave those figures something more to hold our attention.
The revival with Henri-Georges Clouzot in the 1950s gave that familiar toughness more to do. In The Wages of Fear, the sober, economical acting suits a film that asks us to keep checking whether its men know what they are doing. Vanel and Montand make the need to seem dependable a source of friction between Jo and Mario. Peter van Eyck's Bimba and Folco Lulli's Luigi keep the group from becoming merely a contest between them. That company matters to Vanel's performance: another man watching makes the admission of fear harder.
Diabolique (1955) gives him the authority of Police Inspector Alfred Fichet, again under Clouzot. That is a useful quality in a supporting actor, though his early typecasting in unsympathetic parts suggests how easily it could become a restriction. We prefer him when a film asks what it costs a man to keep looking capable, as The Wages of Fear does. Start there, allowing for the long wait in town before the journey.
Biography
Charles Vanel was a French actor and director. Born Charles-Marie Vanel in Rennes on 21 August 1892, he made his screen debut in 1912 and appeared in more than 200 films over a career spanning more than six decades.
He is known for roles in The Wages of Fear (1953) as Mr. Jo, Diabolique (1955) as Police Inspector Alfred Fichet, To Catch a Thief (1955) as Bertani, and The Truth (1960) as Maître Guérin. Vanel worked with directors including Henri-Georges Clouzot, Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Buñuel. He received a Special Mention at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival for his performance in The Wages of Fear.
