Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel is a spectacular adventure film by French director Julien Duvivier (Pépé le Moko, La Belle Equipe). It tells the story of the naive circus artist Achilles Saturnin whose business partner steals his papers, poses as him and causes Saturnin to miss out on a huge inheritance. When members of the crime syndicate Ku Klux Eiffel also set their sights on the fortune, Saturnin seems doomed. But then Saturnin decides to challenge the hoodlums; a series of daredevil exploits on top of the Eiffel Tower follows. The adventurous character of the film is indisputable. But in fact, Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel is much more than just an adventure film. Rather, it’s a combination of several genres so that there is something for everybody: There is (of course!) a love story between Achilles and a cute artist named Sylvanie. There are elements of social drama, e.g. when Achilles loses his job because his twins-act is nothing without his partner who disappeared and so Achilles hungers. It is a detective film, contains allusions to historical groups/ events (the Ku-Klux-Clan), artistic styles (cubism) and it hints (self reflexive) at the fairground-roots of the cinema by integrating fairground motifs in the story (e.g. a haunted house chair on with Achilles drives tied up through the Rochenoire Castle, the shadow play that illustrated the nightmare of the fraud) and by laying the starting point of the plot in the fair environment. Most notably Le Mystère de la Tour Eiffel has a strong comedy tendency of slapstick that runs through the whole film. There are a lot of small gags and effects that make Duvivier’s film and its hero loveable and show the filmmaker's sense for detail. — Cannes Press Kit
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