France – The Magnificent 60s

The Other Side of Midnight (1977) ****

I was settling in for what I thought was an evening of high-class trash when the unexpected occurred. This wasn’t a mushy World War Two romance but a tale of revenge on a par with that wreaked by the legendary Count of Monte Cristo or by the more recent The Housemaid (2026). Except for throwing a romantic spanner in the work, this has little to do with the Second World War and everything to do with how a Frenchwoman drags herself from the gutter by dint of personality and guile to reach, by way of movie stardom, the highest echelons of society and use her wealth and power to extract vengeance.

The two women, Noelle (Marie-France Pisier) and Catherine (Susan Sarandon) who end up competing for the affections of charming pilot Larry (John Beck) may well begin with innocence on their side but pretty soon they toughen up. Noelle is given a brutal lesson in reality, effectively trafficked by her father to a dressmaker, sex part of her apprenticeship. Fleeing to Paris, her suitcase stolen by a taxi driver, she is rescued by the self-deprecating Larry, an American pilot stationed in France with the Royal Canadian Air Force on the eve of World War Two. He’s got a nice line in repartee. After he is recalled to Britain, he promises to return, telling her to have a wedding dress ready. But he doesn’t appear, and she aborts his baby. After a stint as a fashion model, having honed her seductive skills, she shifts into the movies.

Meanwhile, resourceful Catherine had made herself indispensable in the business sense to her PR boss Bill (Clu Gulager), who (in a move that should be appreciated in view of contemporary power politics) gently rebuffs her advances. Her meet-cute with Larry is well-managed but as the romance shifts towards seduction we realize that he’s using the same lines on her as he did with Noelle.

As I mentioned, the actual war doesn’t enter the equation and by its end Noelle is a huge star, but keeping tabs on Larry and delighted to discover that he hasn’t managed to translate being a war hero into a decent income, his wife Catherine the major breadwinner. Once Noelle has stepped up in society by hooking Greek millionaire Constantine Demeris (Raf Vallone) she sets her sights on humiliating Larry, using her lover’s cash to ensure he loses every job he has, even though he manages that well enough on his own account, given to abrasiveness towards any employer.

Slowly, Noelle brings Larry, literally, to heel, arranging for him to be employed as the pilot on her personal plane, humiliating him at every turn – he has to carry her luggage, not speak unless spoken to, and is hauled before Constantine. What with her transformation from almost a street urchin to one of the wealthiest most glamorous women in the world it takes him a while to make the connection.

Of course, they fall for each other all over again. Wife Catherine being now an obstacle, he plans to get rid of her deep in ancient Greek caves. When that doesn’t work, she drowns trying to escape the pair in a storm.

However, suspicions lurk and the pair are brought to trial in a Greek court. Initially, it looks like they’ll get off scot-free but Noelle isn’t the only one obsessed with vengeance and they end up facing the firing squad. There can’t hardly have been a more downbeat ending to an epic picture (it clocks in at 165 minutes).

Male humiliation appears to be the theme. Larry’s meet-cute with Catherine spins on his humiliation and Noelle has no qualms about humiliating her rich husband in public. It’s not money that provides the leverage, it’s sex.

I’m assuming the title is a perverse twist on the Cinderella story. While Larry starts out Prince Charming, later on he’s revealed as an entitled brat.

You’ll maybe be wondering why I’ve selected this. Well, it was seeing John Beck in Blue (1968). I remembered that he’d become something of a leading man in the mid-1970s and could never work out why. He always seemed to be too stolid. But, in fact, he does great work here, humble, reticent, witty, and with a gentle touch in the seduction department.

In acting terms, of course Marie-France Pisier steals the show. A new name to American audiences she had a decent French track record, stretching from Trans-Europ Express (1966) to Cousin Cousine (1975). Not given to over-acting, except when making men feel good, it’s her quiet obsession that determines the movie.

Susan Saradon (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975) makes good on her earlier promise, with a fine performance as a woman who grows in confidence but is still rattled by emotion. Clu Galager (McQ, 1974) and Raf Vallone (The Italian Job, 1969) provide interesting support.

While there’s lushness aplenty, it’s also lean in narrative terms, action speaking louder than words, almost as if silence and secrecy are a prerequisite of vengeance.

Directed with in parts considerable style by Charles Jarrott (Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969) from a script by Herman Raucher (Can Heironymus Merkin etc, 1969) and Daniel Taradash (Hawaii, 1966) based on the Sidney Sheldon bestseller.

This is the kind of movie on which critics and the public are sharply divided and it tends to be the former that gains the greater sway. Only eight critics saw fit to comment on Rotten Tomatoes and they ranked it an outright dud, with a rating of 25%. The public, on the other hand, have responded in droves, over 500 of them so far, and they take the opposite view in terms of rating – a more than healthy 73%. Go figure.

I’m in the general moviegoer camp and think it well worth a viewing.

Three Men To Kill! (1980) ****

Every now and then British streamer Talking Pictures TV comes up with an absolute cracker. I’d never heard of this film and don’t think it gained either a British or American release at the time and there doesn’t appear to have been anything in the way of VHS/DVD activity except a belated 2021 DVD.

Alain Delon was that rare beast, flitting between the commercial world and the arthouse with commendable ease. Luchino Visconti had hired him twice for Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963) and with his amoral screen persona he was a shoo-in for the best of French noir – Purple Noon (1960), Le Samourai (1967), The Swimming Pool (1967) and The Sicilian Clan (1969). He dipped in and out of Hollywood – Once a Thief (1965), Red Sun (1971), Scorpio (1973) and even top-billed in The Concorde…Airport ’79 (1979).

Unusually, he was in charge of his career, picking up the producer credit on 40 of his pictures, including this one, a late fit into the paranoia/conspiracy cycle as epitomized by Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Conversation (1974) and The Parallax View (1975). Though those films drew the line at car chases, bullets into the eye delivered through a keyhole and drowning people in the sea.

Unlike that trio Michel Gerfault (Alain Delon) is not involved in the espionage, surveillance or investigative business, though, if you have poor opinion of professional gamblers given such activity always seems to take place in smoke-filled rooms, you might consider his profession somewhat on the shady side, especially when he later appears conversant with guns.

Outwardly, there’s nothing amoral here. Michel is taking model girlfriend Bea (Dalila Di Lazzaro), a bouncy character putting you in mind of Goldie Hawn, to see his mother in the seaside town of Trouville, a significant move in those days if marriage was on the horizon.

Unfortunately, Michel has turned Good Samaritan, transporting a car crash victim to hospital, unaware the man, who soon dies, is one of three characters, potential whistle-blowers, on the hit list of arms dealer Emmerich (Pierre Dux). On the assumption that Michel might have been told something incriminating, killers are put on his tail.

The thugs don’t care how they kill him, happy to drown him in full view of holidaymakers splashing around in the sea. When they fail to lure him into a trap, he turns the tables, and it’s full-on pedal-to-the-metal car chases through the streets of Paris and wreckage in abandon.

After a slow start to throw you off the scent, director Jacques Deray (The Swimming Pool) doesn’t waste much time catching up and isn’t going to lose available minutes from a lean running time by sticking in such clichés as kidnapping the girlfriend.

Just how well versed Michel is in the ways of the underworld is shown in how he tracks down Mr Big who tries to pay him off and offer him a job. If Emmerich knew what we knew about Michel he wouldn’t have bothered doing anything, just called off his dogs. All Michel wants is the quiet life of a successful poker player and is not the kind of fellow to go around alerting the authorities to high-level skulduggery.

It’s a surprise ending. Except it turns out not to be the ending and this film has more in common with the conspiracy sub-genre than we imagined. Michel is out strolling in the streets soon after when he is assassinated. Sorry to be such a spoiler but these films depend for their impact on a downbeat ending.

Delon was often compared to Steve McQueen for the rare mixture of toughness and genuine charm and that’s very much to the fore here. It makes a change for him to be neither amoral nor a criminal, but his previous outings in this genre lend the supposition that he might be either. I was unfamiliar with Dallila Di Larrazza but that only meant I hadn’t been paying much attention to Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) where she played the female of the monster species. Here’s, she’s refreshing, neither femme fatale nor weighted down by trauma.

Terrific.

Behind the Scenes: Charles Bronson USA Box Office Bust, 1967-1972

That Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami (1968) was a smash hit in France did nothing for Charles Bronson’s Hollywood career. Hollywood had form in disregarding U.S.-born stars that Europe had taken to its box office bosom. Example number one of course was Clint Eastwood, ignored by the big American studios until four years after his movies had cut a commercial swathe through foreign territories. Charles Bronson took about the same length of time for his box office grosses abroad to make an impact back home.

While we tend to look upon The Dirty Dozen (1967) as a career-making vehicle for many of the supporting stars, that wasn’t actually the case. Jim Brown was quickest out of the blocks, a full-blown top-billed star a year later in The Split (1968). Otherwise, John Cassavetes had the biggest crack at stardom after landing the male lead in box office smash Rosemary’s Baby (1968). But the rest of the gang – Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Charles Bronson, Richard Jaeckal et al – remained at least for the time being strictly supporting players.

For Charles Bronson, the year of The Dirty Dozen produced nothing more than television guest spots in Dundee and the Culhane, The Fugitive and The Virginian. Beyond that he had a berth in two flop westerns Villa Rides (1968) and Guns for San Sebstian (1968) and no guarantee his career was moving in an upward direction. But the latter picture was primarily a French-Mexican co-production, the Gallic end set up by top French producer Jacques Bar under the aegis of Cipra which had previously been responsible for Alain Delon vehicles Any Number Can Win (1963), Joy House (1964) and Once a Thief (1965).

There was another, as vital, French connection. Henri Verneuil directed both Any Number Can Win and Guns for San Sebastian so could attest to Bronson’s screen presence. And another legendary French producer, the Polish-born Serge Silberman, best known for Luis Bunuel’s Diary of a Chambermaid (1964), had taken note of Bronson, whose screen persona was similar to that of French stars Lino Ventura and Jean Gabin. Silberman’s Greenwich Films production shingle was in the process of setting up Farewell Friend / Adieu L’Ami.

Like The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), Farewell Friend was part of a new trend to make French productions in English as well as French, in this case the English version viewed as “the working one.” But that ploy failed to convince U.S. distributors to take a chance and the film sat on the shelf for five years. And little that Bronson did in the meantime increased his chances of a serious stab at the Hollywood big time.

Although Paramount had piled cash into the Italian-made Once upon a Time in the West (1968) it was counting on Henry Fonda – undergoing a career renaissance after Madigan (1968), The Boston Strangler (1968) and Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) – to provide the box office momentum. Bronson was billed fourth after Claudia Cardinale, Fonda and Jason Robards, so still in Hollywood’s eyes a supporting player.

And while the Sergio Leone picture flopped Stateside, the success of Farewell, Friend in France turned Bronson into a star and was instrumental in the western breaking box office records in Paris (where it ran for a year) and throughout the country.

Fortunately for Bronson, European producers recognized his potential. His next picture should have been an Italian-French-German co-production of Michael Strogoff, for which he was announced as the top billed star (Advert, Variety, May 8, 1968, p136-137). When that fell through, Italian company Euro International, bidding to become the top foreign studio outside Hollywood, gave him top-billing in Richard Donner drama Twinky (aka Lola, aka London Affair, 1970) and Serge Silberman tapped him for Rene Clement thriller Rider on the Rain (1970), another French hit.

British director Peter Collinson (The Italian Job, 1969) was responsible for recruiting him for You Can’t Win ‘Em All (aka The Dubious Patriots, 1970), but with Tony Curtis taking top billing. Again, though funded by an American studio, this time Columbia, it was another big flop, mostly because the studio did not know how to market the picture, Curtis in a box office slump and Bronson considered to have little appeal.

But still the Europeans kept the faith. Another French-Italian co-production Sergio Sollima’s Violent City (1970) gave him top billing over exiles Telly Savalas and Jill Ireland, Bronson’s wife. That was also the case with Cold Sweat (1970), helmed by British director Terence Young (Dr No, 1962). He had another French-made hit with Someone Behind the Door (1971) and Terence Young hired him again, along with Farewell, Friend co-star Alain Delon, Japanese star Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai, 1954) and Dr No alumni Ursula Andress for international co-production Red Sun. While this western sent box office tills whirring all over the world, it only made a fair impression in the U.S., ranking 53^rd in the annual box office chase.

Riding on the back of The Godfather phenomenon, Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis chose Bronson for Mafia thriller The Valachi Papers (1972), again directed by Terence Young, which produced something of a box office breakthrough in the U.S., ending the year just outside the Top 20. But it took another British director, Michael Winner, to help solidify the Bronson screen persona and boost his global appeal. Four – and all of the hits – out of the star’s next six pictures were directed by Winner. These were the western Chato’s Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972), The Stone Killer (1973) and Death Wish (1975). The Mechanic was such a big hit Stateside it did better in its second year of release than the first and Columbia redeemed itself by giving prison escape thriller Breakout (1975) the widest release – up to that point – of all time.

That America had little interest in developing Bronson as a breakout star could be judged by the distribution treatment of his pictures. As mentioned above, Farewell, Friend had to wait until 1973 for its U.S. debut and then renamed Honor among Thieves. Twinky was denied a cinema release in the U.S. and went straight to television in 1972. Violent City had to wait until 1973 for a distribution deal, Cold Sweat until 1974 and even Red Sun took nine months before it hit American shores. Until The Valachi Papers did the business, Bronson was not considered the kind of star who could open a picture in the U.S.

By then, of course, Bronson had reversed the normal box office rules. Usually, for films starring American actors, foreign revenues were the icing on the cake. For Bronson it was the other way round. Along with Clint Eastwood he was the first of the global superstars, whose name resonated around the world, and whose pictures made huge amounts of money regardless of American acceptance or interest. But had it been left to Hollywood, Bronson would never have made the grade.

Forgive me for updating this and changing the title. I wrote the first version in 2021 before I came up with the bright idea of tagging as “Behind the Scenes” articles that were not movie reviews. Some of those earlier articles lost out because they lacked that instant identification. This is me making amends.

The Lion in Winter (1968) ****

Template for The Godfather (1972) and Succession. King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) has to choose an heir from Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle) and John (Nigel Terry). Helping set the Machiavellian tone are Henry’s wife Eleanor (Katharine Hepburn), his mistress Alais (Jane Merrow) and French King Philip II (Timothy Dalton). Cue plotting, confrontation, double-crossing, rage and lust.

Some other complications: the queen is actually a prisoner, the result of organising a failed coup against her husband, the sons participating in this attempt to overthrow their father, and with Henry willing to sacrifice his mistress in order to achieve an alliance with Philip, relations are less than cordial all round. Eldest son Richard, strong and aggressive, would be the obvious choice, and should be the only choice I would guess by law, but Henry prefers the youngest son John, who is weak, while the middle son Geoffrey is the most savvy (see if you can guess how easily these characters fit The Godfather scenario, or Succession for that matter). Geoffrey reckons that even if passed over for the top job, he will rule from behind the scenes as John’s chancellor.

This is not your normal historical picture with battles, romance and, let’s be honest, costumes, taking central stage. And there’s little in the way of rousing speeches. Virtually all the dialog is plotting. And, like Succession, there are elements of vitriol and pure comedy. In five crisp opening scenes we know everything we need to know. The King brings his family together for Xmas, the Queen freed for the occasion, to decide the succession. Richard is shown in hand-to-hand combat, the wily John leading a cavalry attack, the whiny John pouting and complaining, Alais realizing just how much a pawn she is in the game as Henry explains she is to be married off to Richard.

And if you are not the chosen one, your only chance of gaining the throne is by the back door, by having a powerful ally in your pocket, one whose armies would threaten the King, which is where Philip comes into the equation as potential kingmaker. Let the intrigue begin, especially as those who ought to be little more than bystanders – the women – have ideas of their own. “I’m the only pawn,” says Alais, “that makes me dangerous.” Despite her current status, Eleanor still owns the French province of Aquitaine and taunts her husband by revealing that she slept with his father.

The plot twists and turns as new alliances are formed between the conspiring individuals. The overbearing Henry will certainly remind you of Logan Roy, “When I bellow, bellow back.” And there is a Hitchcockian element in that we, the audience, know far more than the participants and wait for them to fall into traps. Richard is revealed as homosexual, having had an affair with Philip.

The dialogue is superb, brittle, witty, and it could have been all bombast and rage except that emotion carries the day. Henry clearly could not have wished for a better Queen than Eleanor, more than capable of standing up to him, more capable than any of his sons, and he probably wishes she was by his side rather than confined, as by law, to prison. Eleanor still retains romantic notions towards him, even as she forces him to kiss his mistress in front of her – only the audience sees the truth revealed in her eyes, not Henry who is too busy kissing. The uber-male Richard complains to Philip that he never told him he loved him.

Maternal and paternal bonds ebb and flow and throughout it all is the dereliction caused by power. A father will lose the love of the children he rejects. Or, realizing they are more powerful together than as individuals, they could turn against him. The mother faces the same fate – she risks losing the love of the ones she does not back.

Unlike Alfred the Great, the monarchs have stately castles, so the backdrops are more commanding, but once an early battle is out of the way, it is down to the nitty-gritty of plot and counter-plot. A truly satisfying intelligent historical drama.

Peter O’Toole (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962) had played Henry II before in Becket (1964) and is in terrific form. Katharine Hepburn (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 1967) won her second successive Oscar – and her third overall – in a tremendous performance that revealed the inner troubles of a powerful woman, Anthony Hopkins (When Eight Bells Toll, 1971) gave an insight into his talent with his first major role.

John Castle (Blow Up, 1966), Nigel Terry (Excalibur, 1981), Jane Merrow (Assignment K, 1968) and future James Bond Timothy Dalton, in his movie debut, provide sterling support, Dalton and Castle especially good as a sneaky, conniving pair.

*This was an odd choice for a roadshow – at just over two hours considerably*
*shorter than most of the genre. But the 600-seat Odeon Haymarket in London’s West End*
*was an ideal venue for building word-of-mouth and it ran for over a year.*

Modern audiences might bristle at the idea of woman as commodity, but women in those days were the makeweights in alliances of powerful men, though the fact that they bristle at the notion as well evens up proceedings, Eleanor in particular happy to jeopardize Henry’s ambitions in favor of her own, Alais warning Henry to beware of the woman scorned.

Director Anthony Harvey (Dutchman, 1966 ) was deservedly Oscar-nominated. James Goldman (Robin and Marian, 1976) won the Oscar for his screenplay based on his Broadway play which had not been in fact a runaway Broadway hit, only lasting 92 performances, less than three months. John Barry (Zulu, 1963) was the other Oscar-winner for his superb score.

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1970) ***

Samantha Eggar (The Collector, 1965) in her first top-billed role and an adapatation of a novel by French cult item Sebastian Japrisot (Adieu L’Ami/Farewell Friend, 1968). You couldn’t get a better mix.

Fashion photographer Danielle (Samantha Eggar) sets off on road trip from Paris to the south of France only to discover everywhere she goes a doppelganger has been there first. She’s on edge anyway because she’s “borrowed” the car of employer Michael (Oliver Reed) and once police start recognizing her she gets jumpier still. The discovery of a body in the boot and the titular gun (a Winchester rifle) don’t help her frame of mind. But instead of reporting the corpse to the police – she’s a car thief after all – she tries to work it out herself. Amnesia maybe, madness because she keeps having flashes of memory – a spooky surgical procedure – or something worse?

She’s got a battered hand she doesn’t know how. Michael’s wife Anita (Stephane Audran) says she’s not seen Danielle in a month though she is convinced she stayed with the couple the previous night. A drifter Philippe (John McEnery) starts helping her out. Eventually she ends up in Marseilles none the wiser.

It’s a tricksy film and like Mirage (1965), recently reviewed, being limited to her point of view means the audience can only work out everything from her perspective. The string of clues sometimes lead back to the original mystery, other times appear to provide a possible solution. The explanation comes in something of a rush at the end.

Despite being the first top-billed role for Samantha Eggar (Walk Don’t Run. 1966), she would not scale that particular credit mountain again until The Demonoid (1981) but she is good in the role of a mixed-up woman struggling with identity. But since it’s based on a novel by Sebastian Japrisot (The Sleeping Car Murder, 1965) there’s a sneaky feeling a French actress might have been a better fit. Oliver Reed (Women in Love, 1969) is not quite what he seems, a difficult part sometimes to pull off, but he succeeds admirably.

Stephane Audran (Les Biches, 1969), jealous of Danielle, a friend whom she views as a rival for her husband’s affections, has the most intense part, using Danielle as an unwitting cover for betraying Michael. John McEnery (Romeo and Juliet, 1968) could almost be a London spiv, blonde hair, impecunious, clearly using women wherever he goes. Watch out for French stalwarts Marcel Bozzuffi (The French Connection, 1971) and Bernard Fresson (The French Connection II, 1975).

There’s certainly a film noir groove to the whole piece, the innocent caught up in a shifting world, and that’s hardly surprising since director Anatole Litvak began his career with dark pictures like Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) while previous effort Night of the Generals (1967) also involved murder. Litvak and Japrisot collaborated on the screenplay.

I expected a project laced with more atmosphere and a host of original characters. In truth, this is less atmospheric than the other two Japrisot adapatations , the interplay between the characters not so tightly woven, nor the climax so well-spun but it was enjoyable enough.

There was a remake in 2025 starring Freya Mayor (The Emperor of Paris, 2018).

Que La Bete Meure / This Man Must Die (1969) ****

Heavily-layered Claude Chabrol revenge thriller that concentrates as much on the tricks the human mind can play rather a string of unusual twists. Self-justification and redemption go hand in hand. The director sucks us in to sympathize with an obsessed killer on the grounds that his victim deserves to die and then at the end makes us question everything we’ve been led to believe.

As usual, with this director, there’s more than enough atmosphere and his exposure of small-town life in France and the flaws in families and relationships almost serve to turn this into more of a drama than a thriller. But then that is Chabrol’s distinctive trademark.

When the police fail to track down the hit-and-run driver who has killed the young son of Charles Thenier (Michel Duchaussoy), the father, an author, determines to find the killer and, as he confides in his diary, not report him to the authorities, but finish him off himself. He makes the smart deduction that since there was no trace of a repair to a damaged car, the killer must own a garage. By a stroke of luck, he discovers a well-known actress Helen Lanson (Caroline Cellier) was a passenger in the car. Hiding behind his pen-name Marc, he seduces Helene, who has been hit by depression as a result of the incident, and discovers the driver was her brother-in-law Paul (Jean Yanne).

Convincing her to allow him to accompany her on a visit to his sister, his self-justification rises a notch as he notes that Paul is exactly the kind of guy who might well come to a sticky end given the detestable way he treats his wife Jeanne (Anouk Ferjac) and teenage son Phillippe (Marc Di Napoli) and is a womanizer to boot. While Charles bonds with Phillippe, who reveals he wants to kill his father, his relationship with Helene takes a knock when he discovers she’s had a brief affair with her brother-in-law.

So Charles plans to stage an accident at sea but Paul is one step ahead. The driver has found Charles’ diary and has taken a gun on the sailing trip to defend himself. But after Charles and Helene leave, Paul is discovered dead by poisoning. Charles’ diary makes him a suspect. And while he argues that it would be foolish of him to disclose his plans to a diary that is in the dead man’s possession, the police take the view that that would exactly what a clever murderer would do to deflect suspicion.

The police can’t find the poison so Charles is released. Phillippe confesses to the murder. But there is a further twist. The tale on which this is based was called The Beast Must Die, and from the various revelations we would be assuming that the beast in question, the remorseless despicable hit-and-run driver with not a single redeeming feature would be the most likely to fit this category.

But on reflecting on his own obsession, Charles clearly realizes that he is as likely a candidate to be termed a “beast.” It turns out he has let the son take responsibility for the murder and now he sets out to make amends, confessing to Helene that he did it and then heading off to sea presumably to jump overboard at a suitable spot.

Justified killing is never, it turns out, justifiable because in reality it turns the innocent into the guilty, and there’s little distinction between killers. When we cast our minds back, we become aware, as he does, that Charles has transitioned from grieving father to ruthless seducer of a vulnerable woman, preyed on a youngster who in consequence of their supposed friendship is happy to carry the can so Charles can escape, and is in any case going to complete his plan regardless of the cost to others.

Michel Duchaussoy (La Femme Infidele, 1969) steps up to the plate. The supporting cast are excellent. After the abysmal Road to Corinth (1967), Claude Chabrol established his name as the inheritor of the Hitchcock mantle after this and La Femme Infidele. Written by the director and Paul Gegauff (More, 1969) from the novel by Nicholas Blake (the pen-name of Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis, father of Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis).

No shortage of tension, upends your expectations, totally involving.

The Picasso Summer (1969) ***

Must-see for collectors of cinematic curios. A treatise on entitlement, bullfighting, Picasso, the impact of celebrity on everyday lives and the hermaphroditic qualities of snails? Or an innovative piece of moviemaking through its use of a jigsaw split-screen, an audacious reimagining of the painter’s work, documentary and animation. Or despite the involvement of top talent like Albert Finney (Tom Jones, 1963), Yvette Mimieux (Dark of the Sun, 1968), composer Michel Legrand (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968) and writer Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451, 1966), rightly consigned to the vault and never given a cinema release.

George (Albert Finney), a disenchanted San Francisco architect who designs warehouses, and wife Alice (Yvette Mimieux) take a holiday in France to rekindle his love of Picasso and set out to find and – in in a severe case of early onset entitlement – talk to the legendary painter. So they fly to Paris, take the train to Cannes and cycle around. Romance, it has to be said, in that idyllic countryside is the last thing on his mind, although George does pluck a guitar and sing a love song on a riverbank and they do dally in the sea. And he is far from a stuffed shirt, in one scene stealing a boy’s balloon to prevent the kid hogging a telescope.

*Not even Barbra Streisand singing the title track provided the movie with any momentum.*

There are barely ten lines of meaningful dialog, though Alice’s frustration at her husband’s obsession is soon obvious. The best sequences are the reimagining of Picasso paintings as animation. Picasso broke down the world, so we are told, and represented it as his own so by this token it seems pretty fair to do the same to the artist’s work. In the best scene George turns toreador (not sure the budget ran to stuntmen) facing up to a real bull. But there is plenty Picasso to make up, including a candlelit walk along the “Dream Tunnel” displaying the artist’s War and Peace murals, a lecture on the painter’s ceramics and his self-identification with death in the bull ring.

And there is a twist at the end, as the couple on a beach do not loiter long enough to see a man resembling the famed artist make Picasso-like drawings on the sand. But mostly it’s a story about American entitlement, that a painter should not shut himself off from the world in order to prevent the world stopping him getting on with painting. When George, denied entrance or even acknowledgement of his bell-ringing, stands at the gate to the Picasso villa, it is almost as he is the one imprisoned by his need for celebrity. Half a century on, the need for ordinary lives to be validated by contact with celebrities has become an insane part of life. The fact that the impossible mission ends in defeat (“everything is still the same”) lends a tone of irony.

*Work out in your own mind what resemblence the guy who appears briefly at the end bears to Picasso.*

Finney’s box office status at this point in his career allowed him to retain his thick Lancashire accent – Sean Connery managed that trick for his entire career. As in Two for the Road (1967) he does a trademark Bogart impression and eats with his mouth open. And he is game enough to stand in a bull ring with a raging bull. Yvette Mimieux is scandalously underused, insights into her thoughts conveyed by lonely walks through night-time streets, although she is the only one to fully appreciate art when she comes across a blind painter (Peter Madden). The best part goes to Luis Miguel Dominguin playing himself, a bullfighter and renowned friend of Picasso. In the incongruity stakes little can match Graham Stark (The Plank, 1967) as a French postman.

As you might have guessed this had a somewhat complicated production. Three directors were involved: Robert Sallin, Serge Bourguignon and Wes Herchendsohn. It was the only directorial chore for Sallin, better known as the producer of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). It brought a temporary halt to the career of Oscar-nominated director Bourguignon (Sundays and Cybele, 1962) whose previous film was Two Weeks in September starring Brigitte Bardot. Herchendsohn was primarily an animation layout artist/supervisor credited with episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973-1974).

There is some stunning cinematography from Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance, 1972) and a superb score by Michel Legrand. This was the beginning and end of the movie career of Edwin Boyd who shared screenwriting credit with Bradbury. And it was the beginning and the end of the movie as a viable film for general release, Warner Brothers promptly shelved it.

In the hands of a French or Spanish arthouse moviemaker, with a tale of protagonists going nowhere, this might have gained more critical traction. It’s hardly going to fall into the highly-commended category, but in fact from the present-day perspective says a lot about celebrity obsession and entitlement. Despite the oddities – perhaps because of them – I was never bored.

The Sleeping Car Murder (1965) ****

Absolutely brilliant thriller. Even after a half a century, still a knock out. A maniac on the loose, baffled cops, glimpses into the tattered lives of witnesses, victims and relatives, told at break-neck speed by Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z, 1969) on his debut and concluding with an astonishing car chase through the streets of Paris. Not just an all-star French cast – Yves Montand (Grand Prix, 1966), Oscar-winner Simone Signoret (Is Paris Burning?, 1966), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Les Biches, 1968) and Michel Piccoli (Topaz, 1969) – but directed with a Georges Simenon (creator of Maigret) sensibility to the frailties of humanity.

As well as the twists and turns of the narrative, what distinguishes this thriller are the parallel perspectives. Where most whodunits present an array of suspects, inviting the audience to work out the identity of the killer, here virtually all the characters are presented both objectively and subjectively. Some are delusional, others highly self-critical, occasionally both, and we are given glimpses into their lives through the characters’ internalized voice-over and dialog.

Tiny details open up worlds – the wife of a dead man bewailing that he would not be able to wear the fleecy shoes she had just bought him to keep out the cold during his night-time job, a policeman revealing he wanted to be a dancer, a vet who wants to create a new breed of animals, a witness whose parents committed suicide. But just as many, the flotsam and jetsam of the police life, irritate the hell out of the cops: Bob Valsky (Charles Denner) constantly berates their efforts, relatives bore the pants off their interviewer, not to mention self-important police chief Tarquin (Pierre Mondy) who has an answer for everything.

A young woman Georgette (Pascale Roberts) is discovered dead in the second-class sleeper compartment of a train after it has pulled into Paris. Initial suspicion falls on the other occupants including aging actress Eliane (Simone Signoret) in the thrall of her much younger lover Eric (Jean Louis Trintignant), impulsive blonde bombshell Bambi (Catherine Allegret), low-level office worker Rene (Michel Piccoli) and Madame Rivolani (Monique Chaumette). Weary Inspector Grazziani (Yves Montand), suffering from a cold and wanting to spend more time with his family, is handed the case. But before he can interview the suspects, they start getting knocked off.

So convinced are the police of their own theories that they ignore the testimony of Eliane and instantly home in on fantasist Rene, treated with contempt, a dishevelled lecherer who on the one hand misinterprets signals from women and on the other realizes that no one in their right mind would ever date him. Eliane is tormented by the prospect of being abandoned by her controlling lover.

It’s a race against time to find the passengers before the killer. In the middle of all this there is burgeoning romance between Bambi and clumsy mummy’s boy Daniel (Jacques Perrin), who may well hold the key to the murders. Their meet-cute is when he ladders her stockings.

I won’t spoil it for you by listing all the red herrings, surprises, mishaps, tense situations and explorations of psyche, but the pace never abates and it keeps you guessing to the end. And while all that keeps the viewer on tenterhooks what really makes the movie stand out is the depiction of the inner lives of the characters.

So often cast as a lover Yves Montand is outstanding as the diligent cop. Signoret captures beautifully the life of a once-beautiful woman who now enjoys the “empty gaze of men,” Trintignant essays a sleazier character than previously while Michel Piccoli who often at this stage of his career played oddballs invites sympathy for an unsympathetic character. Catherine Allegret (Last Tango in Paris, 1972) and Jacques Perrin (Blanche, 1971) charm as the young lovers. In tiny roles look out for director Claude Berri (Jean de Florette, 1986), Marcel Bozzuffi (The French Connection, 1971) and Claude Dauphin (Hard Contract, 1969),

Costa-Gavras constantly adds depth to the story and his innovative use of multiple voice-over, forensic detail, varying points-of-view, plus his masterful camerawork and a truly astonishing (for the time) car chase points to an early masterpiece. Sebastian Japrisot (Farewell, Friend / Adieu L’Ami, 1968) wrote the screenplay based on his novel.

Can’t remember where I got my DVD, perhaps second-hand, but there is an excellent print, taken from the 2016 restoration, available on YouTube.

The Emperor of Paris (2018) ***

France has been particularly successful in attracting a global movie audience for its literary and real-life legends. There have been over 20 big screen versions of The Three Musketeers, six of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, over a dozen of Les Miserables, and Napoleon Bonaparte has been the object of stars like Marlon Brando and directors such as Ridley Scott. But one legendary French figure has failed to connect. Underworld thief-taker Vidocq has attracted little interest outside his homeland. Even Douglas Sirk’s Hollywood version A Scandal in Paris (1948) starring George Sanders failed to crack the international market.

The Emperor of Paris is the latest iteration. I came across it while scrolling through Amazon Prime’s small catalog and since it starred Vincent Cassel (Mesrine, 2008), inheritor of the Jean-Paul Belmondo mantle, I gave it a go.

Set in Napoleonic times, Vidocq’s fame as a criminal relied on his ability to escape from the toughest prisons. After his last escape in 1805, when everyone believed him dead, he turns legit, building up a business as a fabric retailer. But later he turns into a highly successful thief-taker, hired by the police as an unpaid detective to clean up the streets of Paris on the basis that he will be granted amnesty. The officials dangle him on a string of promise for a heck of a long time.

While the legend of Vidocq rests on him becoming known as the father of modern criminology, the founder of Surete Nationale and setting up the first detective agency, this tale focuses more on action than detection – and presumably the boring bureaucracy that entails. Much of the information about criminals comes from Vidocq’s own experience, those of his accomplices and from informants, willing or otherwise.

There’s nothing sophisticated about the French cops, little more than night watchmen or official thugs who prefer interrogation to detection, and this is filthy twisty-street Paris before Haussman got his hands on it and recreated it with boulevards and broad expanse.

Vidocq knows more than the police where the bad guys hide out though some of them, like the celebrated American mobsters of the Prohibition era, are more likely to vaunt their notoriety, as with sadistic gang leader Maillard (Denis Lavant). And as ever when a hero ventures too close, the bad guys are apt to take extreme measures to gain revenge.

The harsh tale is leavened by the introduction of petty thief and prostitute Annette (Freya Mayor) who never manages to get Vidocq, who trusts nobody, to commit to a relationship, and social climber and arch seducer Baroness Roxane (Olga Kurylenko).

Vidocq himself is something of an enigma, soft spoken, dour, a loner, penned in by all his suspicions and led a merry dance, it has to be said, by high-ranking officials determined to deny him just reward. Betrayal, unexpected alliances and cold-blooded killings keep the narrative on a constant simmer. In one of the standard tropes, Vidocq assembles his own team, of criminals. The sets are excellent and the action pretty much non-stop

The role is tailor-made for Vincent Cassel, the best of the bad boy good boys, who mostly has to look surly and dispense his own version of justice. Denis Lavant (Holy Motors, 2012) is a memorable villain and August Diehl (Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Spy, Assassin, 2024) makes meaty work of best friend turned enemy. Freya Mavor (Marie Antoinette TV series, 2025) is both crafty and romantic while Olga Kurylenko (Thunderbolts, 2025) is mainly the former.

This has the feel of a two-parter, with the more interesting part of the tale in criminology terms still to come, but so far there’s been no sign of a sequel.

Directed by Jean-Francois Richet (Mesrine) who collaborated on the screenplay with Eric Besnard (Wrath of Man, 2021).

While nowhere near as compelling as Mesrine, it’s still a fascinating tale and Cassel is always good to watch.

Catch it on Amazon Prime.

The Assassin (2025) ** Amazon Prime

Ties itself up in knots with narrative complication so that by the time it comes to the dumbest of dumb climaxes you’re simply worn out. And having tied itself up in knots, it only escapes from the problem of a son coming to terms with a mother who’s a serial killer by providing him with the most unlikely of get-out-of-jail-free cards. And, actually, by the time you reach the conclusion you realize it’s really about nepo kids, one dumb as all get out and the other a chinless wonder.

Keeley Hawes as Julie the titular murderous mercenary is good value but that’s mostly because she curses like a defrocked nun and is as ratty as hell and her engagement with her estranged son Edward (Freddie Highmore) is like Lethal Weapon on speed.

*Previous (female) assassins we have known.*

So Julie, retired a decade and holed up in Greece, is pulled out of retirement because…she’s closest to potential victim Kayla (Shalom Brune-Franklin) …who is (it turns out) the unlikely girlfriend of unlikely journalist (of what? Rabbit Times?) Edward who is only (it turns out) interested in her because he’s been left a dodgy inheritance by his mysterious father (now deceased) and the trail of that leads to her family.

But not killing Kayla makes Julie the target of various other assassins, but rather than going about their job in discreet fashion by picking her off with a telescopic rifle they decide to barge in on a wedding and massacre everybody in sight in the hope a stray bullet hits her. Luckily though, that provides an opening for local butcher Luka (Gerald Kyd) to become her sometime companion.

Then we leap into a menagerie of subplots. Kayla’s cokehead brother Ezra (Devon Terrell) has mummy issues (she’s deceased, too, mysteriously committing suicide) which (it turns out) is the perfect way for another subplottee Marie (Gina Gershon) to enter the equation. After shagging him to pick his brains she (it turns out) is Edward’s long-lost aunt. Then there’s the mysterious letter, written on yellow notepaper (!!!) kept hidden in a safe by Kayla’s dad, billionaire tycoon Aaron (Alan Dale), which contains information so dangerous it could destroy his business.

Previous (male) assassins we have known.

But (aha!) someone knows the secret, Aaron’s tech expert Jasper (David Dencik) is blackmailing Aaron but is now on the run. Anyways, Kayla discovers the terrible secret which is that Aaron was initially funded by a dodgy arms dealer. To prevent that secret getting out, Aaron had him bumped off 30 years ago by (wait for it) Julie on her first solo killing mission.

Kayla is threatening to expose her dad’s secret though it doesn’t occur to her to just hand the exclusive to Rabbit Times chief investigative reporter Edward. Meanwhile, Ezra spends his time concocting barmy plans majoring in violence that all go south until his exasperated dad gives up all pretence of considering him as just the guy to run the business when the time comes.

Meanwhile, Marie (it turns out) isn’t Edward’s long-lost aunt after all – she’s (wait for it) his long-lost mum. And when Edward finds that hard to believe she kidnaps him and takes him to a stronghold. But (it turns out) Edward’s suspicions are correct.

There’s scarcely a minute goes by without someone bursting in with a machine gun or worse, so it’s no surprise that Julie and Luka (who’s proved himself handy with a meat cleaver) decide to invade the stronghold. And that sets up the preposterous finale.

Marie isn’t Edward’s birth mum at all but her dead husband was his father. Marie didn’t fancy all the messy things pregnancy did to a young beautiful body so they called in a surrogate. But Julie, in the way of Jason Bourne, had a conscience three decades ago when it came to kids and after knocking off Marie’s husband, in the absence of a bottle of milk or any other pacifier to soothe a crying baby, scooped up said infant (Edward).

Marie wants her revenge by having her not-son Edward kill his not-mother Julie. You couldn’t make it up. Yet someone did, presumably as the get-out-of-jail-free card so Edward didn’t have to worry about being the son of a serial killer.

And to show how grown up her is, Edward kills Marie. And as if this was Revenge of the Nepos, Ezra poisons his old man.

Kayla forgets all about exposing the nasty beginnings of her family company and Edward ignores the complications of the serial killer mum and they all (literally) sail off into the sunset.

Written by the Williams Brothers (The Missing, 2014).

The only good thing to be said about this is that it knocks Guy Ritchie off his throne as the King of the Preposterous.