Une manche et la belle

"What Price Murder?" suffers from a way, way, way too sluggish first half where almost nothing happens and which could potentially cause viewers to shut the film off early: it largely appears to be a travelogue of the French Riviera and the Italian Venice, but for that purpose it would have benefitted majorly from being shot in color. The film does get better in the second half, when it embraces the pulpiness (and the bleakness) of James Hadley Chase's story: there are some interesting plot developments and one "bit of business", in particular, involving a phone call and a recording machine, that I would honestly describe as brilliant. Still, that is not enough to recover from the sluggishness of the first half. Mylene Demongeot is very good here and shows again why she was arguably Bardot's most serious French rival at that time. ** out of 4.

An unscrupulous fortune hunter (Henri Vidal), recently married to a wealthy older woman (Isa Miranda), is seduced by his wife's sexy secretary (Mylène Demongeot) but the lovers' plans for murder soon get complicated by the secrets all three keep in a twisty thriller adapted from James Hadley Chase's "The Sucker Punch". The prolific pulp novelist's work was heavily influenced by James M. Cain and here it's THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE skillfully blended with a heavy dose of Billy Wilder's SUNSET BLVD. It's all there; the attractive older woman bringing a gigolo into her rococo mansion and buying him suits, grabbing his hand at a wrestling match, and pulling him down for a vampiric kiss as if Betty Schafer had convinced Joe Gillis to marry and murder Norma Desmond. Despite the familiar plot machinations, there's enough surprises to keep things fresh and the location filming on the French Riviera gives this cold-blooded noir an "evil under the sun" aura. The stunning Mylène Demongeot's lovely but lethal sex kitten is impossible to resist and it's easy to see how any man would kill for this seductive mix of Marilyn Monroe & Brigitte Bardot.

A solid film noir with strong echoes of Sunset Boulevard (the "kept man" who comes to hate his keeper) and Double Indemnity. The dialog lacks the crackle of the best noir, and I found the performance by leading man Henri Vidal lackluster. Some of the rear-projection driving scenes are unintentionally hilarious -- they reminded me of a sequence in Airplane! And a scene at a wrestling match -- possibly a failed attempt at foreshadowing -- seemed badly out of place, more appropriate for Nothing Sacred or (Zucker Brothers again) a Police Squad! episode. But Mylène Demongeot is terrific (not to mention hot) in a fresh-faced variation on Barbara Stanwyck's femme fatale role in Double Indemnity. The plot has several nice twists. Hard to find (I happened to spot a poorly transferred VHS copy at a library book sale) but worth checking out.

Henri Vidal works for a bank and has a chance to chisel some francs from rich Isa Miranda. When it turns out she knows, he turns it on its head, and eventually she proposes to him. Vidal, however, is already having an affair with her secretary, Mylène Demongeot, who is mulling a proposal from her other lover, a rich guy. Vidal and Mlle. Demongeot fantasize about killing his wife and enjoying the money, but two people like them could never get away with it. Then Vidal comes up with a perfect murder scheme.

It's a handsome little policier co-written and directed by Henri Verneuill; he was not a great talent, but he was a redoubtable craftsman, and this movie, from a novel by James Hadley Chase, has lots of twists and turns, with an ending that surprised me.... and of course, seemed inevitable afterwards.

Special film like anything signed Henri Verneuil! Any film directed by him is an event, he was and remains one of the greatest French directors (actually, he was Armenian, born in Turkey). The best role I've seen Henri Vidal. The best role I saw Mylène Demongeot, in the role of a young woman greedy for money. She looks very sexy only in a swimsuit, when she shows her breasts in the water. Isa Miranda is also very good in the role of a woman who is desperately looking for love, willing to pay anything (in the end she pays with her own life). Henri Verneuil was and remains a great filmmaker, check all his films, especially "The Sicilian Clan" (1969)Le clan des Siciliens(original title), "The 25th Hour" (1967)La vingt-cinquième heure (original title), "The Night Caller" (1975)Peur sur la ville (original title), "The Burglars" (1971)Le casse (original title), "The Serpent" (1973)Le serpent (original title), all masterpieces, starring the greatest actors of all time. This "A Kiss for a Killer" (1957)Une manche et la belle (original title) is one of his first feature films, made after a novel by the famous thriller novelist James Hadley Chase, the pseudonym of René Lodge Brabazon Raymond.