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A TRANSMUTATION OF GOLD (2#) -

Marc Behm has died. Max Jakubowski brought this news to us out of France via the UK Guardian over the past weekend. Behm was a writer with an unusual mind.

Among other things, he wrote the story for the movie Charade. Perhaps you've seen it or, at least, heard of it.

Charade is a movie with at least three layers. The top layer is a delightful confection. It is glitzy with glamorous stars, catchy music by Mancini, wonderful cinematography and even costumes by a noted designer. You could enjoy this layer without thinking about it very much, like a casual sightseer.

The second layer is a kind of caper chase. It has witty dialogue, exciting suspense with a maiden in jeopardy, and a lot of movement. You could follow the chase as a spectator and enjoy the movie for just that.

But Charade has an even deeper, darker, and more serious layer - and this is where it really grabbed me. It seemed to me at a visceral level, that somehow this story was inspired by or based on someone's theory about what had happened during World War II at the French village of Oradour
sur Glane.

My feeling was not based on anything I could put my finger on, but I felt it deeply, nevertheless. And, eventually, I became curious about who had written this story. And that was how I discovered Marc Behm.

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Charade: Regina Lambert finds that her husband has been murdered. She is later told that he was one of five men who stole $250,000 in gold from the U.S. government during World War II, and the government wants it back. The money was not found among his possessions, and Reggie can shed no light on its whereabouts...

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During World War II a massacre occurred in the French village of Oradour. Over the years various theories were offered to explain the event. In some theories the villagers were killed as an act of retribution by the Nazi SS. But according to other theories, a shipment of Nazi gold was supposed to pass through the village and was stolen there or lost. The old village has been left in its ruined condition as a memorial to the villagers who were killed there by the Nazis. Instead of rebuilding it, a newer village was built nearby.

Was the Charade story inspired by
or based on the mystery of Oradour?

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