Anklage - Mord

This was the last great movie by the French director André Cayatte. The movie has some resemblance with "Touch of Evil (1958)" but it lacks its dramatic construction. The scene in the English Court with Tom Hastings (John Steiner) on trial is at the edge of the non-serious. Annie Girardot playing Suzanne Corbier is certainly a match and an equal of Marlene Dietrich but her story is not so convincing. How can she as an superintendent be so sure of the innocence of Catherine Dumais (Bibi Andersson), wife of the architect Dumais? Is her female intuition so strong? The tension in the court-room is also not at such a height that one remains nailed in his chair. A supplementary problem is that the two judicial systems of France and England are involved which can lead to confusion. But Cayatte knows the art to catch your attention even when the story is banal and without interest.

Good mix of thriller and drama. Although a litle predictable, it ends up honestly portraying Suzanne's difficulty in doing justice, the historical animosity between Britain and France, and the hypocrisy of bureaucratic institutions and the press. Interesting.