I viewed this and Francois Truffaut’s other Hitchcock homage Mississippi Mermaid (1969) the wrong way round, which is just as well, because on the evidence of his first venture into the Hitchcockian thriller I might not have been tempted into second helpings. This divided critics from the outset, receiving decided mixed reviews at the time, but now appearing to have gained more critical approval.
I can see why that might be. It’s certainly a stylish number. But it’s not much more than a more artistic version of the slasher movies, where you’re waiting to see how inventive a director can be in dispatching various victims. And you might be inclined to give this the benefit of the doubt if you see it as a female version of the John Wick revenge flick.
There are a couple of twists, but they don’t feed into the narrative particularly well. You discover why our bride Julie (Jeanne Moreau) is hell bent on her savage spree, though that’s not obvious at the start, where she switches from potential suicide to murderer.
Turns out she wasn’t a bride for more than a few minutes, just long enough to step out onto the church steps where her husband is shot dead. Quite how she divines that five men were responsible is never revealed. But she decides to take them out one by one, and in some senses, in ironic fashion as the deaths coincide with their flaws.
So here’s the Big Reveal. You expect her husband to be the victim of some conspiracy, knocked off for business or political reasons or maybe he was a gangster who stepped on too many toes or the opposite a cop getting too close to the crime hierarchy. But it’s none of these. The shooting was an accident. Five friends were playing around with a loaded gun near the church and it went off. Bit far-fetched, I know, but that’s the story.
Even when Julie learns the truth she’s not dissuaded from her intent, even though the quintet would probably have got banged up for the accident, had she gone to the police after learning the truth. But there you go, people with hidden homicidal tendencies are liable to indulge in them given the opportunity. You could say, well, why should she be punished, so racked with pain and lost love, that she thinks of taking her own life. But will she get succor from taking the lives of so many others? Apparently not.
Anyways, her first victim is womanizer Bliss (Claude Rich), so she comes upon him the guise of a seductress, an easy lay, and with a simple premise manages to get him to climb out on a high balcony, making it easy for her to push him off. Next up is lonely alcoholic bachelor Robert Coral (Michel Bouquet). She poisons his alcohol.
To gain access to the house of political wannabe Clement Morane (Michel Lonsdale), she pretends to be her son’s teacher. It takes a bit of wheeze to trap Clement in a small cupboard which she seals up with the duct tape to facilitate suffocation.
If you want to get close to an artist, what easier way than to volunteer to pose in the nude as his model for a painting of the huntress god Diana complete with bow and arrow. Better still, get Delvaux (Daniel Boulanger) him to fall in love with you before killing him in the back with your newfound archery skills.
The last victim is harder to gain access to, given Fergus (Charles Denner) is in prison. But no problem if you are also a prisoner, having confessed to the other four murders, and get locked up in the same penitentiary as your victim. Get yourself on the catering team and you’ll get easy access to a kitchen knife. And then your task is complete.
Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria!, 1966) is quite superb, not just the sullen-faced lover of previous movies, but quite engaging as the inventive killer. The men are a roll call of rising French stars.
But too much of it doesn’t make sense and it’s all on the surface in the fashion of the modern slasher picture.
Again based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich (Mississippi Mermaid, 1969), Truffaut co-wrote it with Jean-Louis Richard (Fahrenheit 451, 1966).
Approach this as side hustle by the famous director, a dip into fun, and it’s more than acceptable. Look for anything else and you’ll get lost looking.
