Le glaive et la balance

André Cayatte is not in 'crusading' mood here but once again places moral ambiguity under the microsope. He and his collaborators Charles Spaak and Henri Jeanson, both of whom are masters of their craft, have written a gripping and penetrating tale of the investigative and judicial process that follows the arrest of three young men on a charge of kidnapping and murder. Each of the three has sufficient motive and opportunity to commit the crime but only two men are spotted running from the scene. Needless to say when the case comes to trial the task of deciding which two to convict proves impossible for the jurors and they reach the only possible conclusion. The angry mob that has gathered outside had reached its own verdict however......... Good performances from Jean-Claude Brialy, Renato Salvatore and Anthony Perkins as the three accused. Perkin's command of French is impressive. Cayatte is clever here in that we get to know their characters without ever getting too close to them. Even their individual reactions in court when hearing the verdicts are unrevealing. Mention must also be made of Jacques Monod as the Commissaire and veteran Fernand Ledoux as the Procureur. One of the jurors is played by Marcel Peres who happened to play juror#2 in Cayatte's scathing attack on the French jury system 'Justice est faite'.

As is customary in his films Cayatte leaves more questions than answers. Here of course we are left to ponder: which two, if any, were guilty?

French critics often talk about Cayatte's cybernetics...But,they say,some day ,the robots went wrong.Roughly from 1960 onwards,well another cheap trick of the nouvelle vague.

At the time,"le glaive et la balance" was slagged off by the young turks of the rising Godardesque generation :"bad actors" "agonizing trial" "overblown" "unlikely story"..you name it...

Well,if a story had to be plausible to be filmed,99% of the production would be dismissed .The problem lies in the fact that Cayatte deals with a very serious story:a child's murder,three suspects,two of whom are guilty.

Retrospection illumines different aspects of the movie,unavailable,contextually,to critics of the time of issue.Firstly ,this is par excellence the kind of movie Hollywood could remake .Its components are contemporary:a suspenseful thriller with a whodunit at that,three long flashbacks searching the suspects' lives,and a final trial which would effortlessly make today's directors (and script writers) drool:shall we sentence one innocent or shall we acquit two criminals?

The populace will rule...in a way a lot of viewers will find unbearable.And justice for all???