“Time is the substance of which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along. But I am time. It’s a tiger, tearing me apart; but I am the tiger”
A cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry, Jean-Luc Godard’s irreverent journey to the mysterious Alphaville remains one of the least conventional films of all time.
Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero and secret agent Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of the fascist computer, Alpha 60.
Caution travels to Alphaville, a futuristic city on a distant planet, in search of his friend and fellow agent Henri Dickson (Akim Tamiroff), who disappeared while looking for the scientist von Braun (Howard Vernon).
Caution masquerades as Ivan Johnson, a journalist for Figaro-Pravda. The girl who shows him to his hotel room offers to sleep with him, describing herself as a ‘third-class seductress’. Caution turns her down. Then the first of several attempts on his life is made.
The city is run by croaking supercomputer Alpha 60, which has ordered citizens not to express emotions. In one of the film’s most arresting scenes, people found guilty of weeping in public are machine-gunned to death in the swimming baths.
Alpha 60 is plotting to destroy the Outerlands by fermenting discontent. So it is up to Caution, aided by Von Braun’s beautiful daughter Natacha (Godard’s then-wife Anna Karina), to stop it.
Jean-Luc Godard had no budget (or script), filmed in the most modern parts of Paris he could find, and used no special effects at all. Yet still, he produced a classic science fiction movie.
Eddie Constantine had played Caution (a character created by Peter Cheyney) in a series of B-movie thrillers before Godard poached both actor and character to secure German funding.
Godard and Constantine reunited for a 1991 sequel, Germany Year 90 Nine Zero (original title “Allemagne année 90 neuf zéro”), with Constantine – in his final role – once again playing Lemmy Caution and Godard using this Cold War parable to consider the fucked-up lessons of history as the millennium approached.
Lemmy Caution
Eddie Constantine Henri Dickson
Akim Tamiroff Prof. Leonard Nosferatu/Von Braun Howard Vernon Natacha Von Braun
Anna Karina Seductresses (Third Class) Christa Lang
Valerie Boisgel Professor Heckell
Jean-Andre Fieschi Professor Jeckell Jean-Louis Comolli
Director Jean-Luc Godard
You May Also Like
And Soon The Darkness (1970) A cycling holiday in France for two young, pretty British nurses turns into a nightmare when…
Wild, Wild Planet, The (1965) Following Assignment: Outer Space and Battle of the Worlds, Italian director Antonio Margheriti was approached by…
Act of Vengenace (1974) Five women - Linda (Jo Ann Harris), Teresa (Connie Strickland), Karen (Lisa Moore), Nancy (Jennifer Lee…
All Hands on Deck (1961) In his early days as a saintly college boy, a mythological All-American, too full of his…
After The Fox (1966) A rather forgettable Peter Sellers comedy about an ingenious criminal who becomes a movie director as…
Americano, The (1955) Sam Dent (Glenn Ford) sets off on the long journey from Texas to Brazil with a…
Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) "The Beach Party gang goes sky diving" This 1965 addition to the beach movie franchise from…
Alphabet Murders, The (1965) Having met with cinematic success with Agatha Christie's Miss Marple as played by Margaret Rutherford, MGM…
Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero and secret agent Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of the fascist computer, Alpha 60.
