Par un beau matin d'été

Likable if rather wistful James Hadley Chase adaptation. The first half particularly is light and verging on the comedic, albeit with stunning b/w photography and ultra cool soundtrack.

Things get a bit more serious as things get a bit more serious, but considering the subject is blackmail and murder, this is a mostly mannered interpretation. Jean-Paul Belmondo, great as ever and so relaxed, throughout.

Sexy Sophia Daumier is very effective as his very close sister and Geraldine Chaplin, in her first role, does well as the captive. Not as rough and tough as it might have been and plenty of decent dialogue instead, well this is a French film after all.

As far as I remember, this film is faithful to the James Hadley Chase's novel; a novelist whose stories were always about greed, greed, greed and involved mostly disgusting, ruthless, ready at anything characters to achieve their evil plans. Women were most of the time nastier than the males, femmes fatales oblige. The other trademark of Chase was, besides blackmail schemes the tight, breathtaking, suspense. Chase was one of the first page turner writer. So, don't spend time and energy to find any good guys here. George Geret is the perfect choice with this kind of cast; Belmondo, despite his talent, a bit less. We feel that here, he is doing his best not to play comedy.

Undistinguished kidnapping caper, somewhat sparked by a good cast, and particularly by the sexy, provocative Sophie Daumier, a Brigitte Bardot-lookalike but with a sturdier, more toned body (which I like). **1/2 out of 4.