Rauschgift Curare

In the wake of Henry Decoin's "Razzia Sur La Chnouff"(1954),French thrillers began to show a tendency to getting more realistic.As an user has pointed out,the cops are no more supermen,or heroes à la Bogart,but "professional office-based men".Although forgotten in France ,"Identité Judiciaire" seems to have enjoyed a certain success overseas for the names are americanized on its IMDb page,with some mistakes:Dora and the lawyer bear the same name in the American version (Barton) and they are not related .

A serial killer drugs and rapes his victims.We know his identity two thirds throughout the movie ,in a very suspenseful scene ,which displays a strong Hitchcockesque influence.Although the movie does not try to sound American ,Dora Doll strangely resembles Gloria Grahame. Raymond Souplex,who plays the captain,would become the hero of detective series "Les Cinq Dernières Minutes" (Commissaire Bourrel),and ,along Jean Debucourt as the lawyer,he gives the movie substance.

Although there's no Inspector Maigret-type character here, from my perspective as an American viewer, this film is like a Simenon crime novel come to life on the screen. The film does not feautre gunfights, wild car chases, or exotic locales. Instead, it features some hard-working, unglamourous French police officers working on a case step-by-step, slowly, carefully. Each "shady" character has an interesting story and each witness has some kind of personal agenda. The police officials are not supermen or Bogart-like; they are office-based men who are professionals. In the US, the film was redubbed, changing character names, although I haven't viewed the French original, so I don't know if plot elements were changed. It was also released as an exploitation film, which is really a stretch. There is a white slavery element to the plot, but it's not sexy at all and there are NO scantilly clad women anywhere to be seen. Anyone taken in by that advertising angle had better like routine police dramas, or he will be let down! Overall, an interesting police detection drama, but no cheesecake and definitely not "shocking" or "daring" as advertised on the risque poster used to promote the film originally!

Police commissioner Basquier (Raymond Souplex) leads his team of chain-smoking detectives on the hunt for a sadistic killer who likes to drug his victims. The film is largely office-bound, dealing with the procedural aspects of the enquiry, though director Hervé Bromberger does manage to squeeze in a car chase, a streetfight between two young women, and a scene in which a roomful of prostitutes are strip-searched. This is a movie that doesn't mind lifting its skirt and flashing a bit of thigh even while it's wagging its finger at the more degenerate elements of society.

It's hardly Silence of the Lambs, but the understated performance of Souplex, who went on to play a similar role in a long-running French TV series, keeps it grounded in a believable reality. There's a decent twist ("Oh, it's that guy!") and when the movie does finally step out of the office for the obligatory chase scene, there is some good Paris location work.

It was interesting to read the other review here, of the US cut, which appears to have had 14 minutes removed. The French DVD is the full 90-minute version and includes brief nudity.