Tony Wright is in Marseilles to investigate a sunk freighter on behalf of an insurance company. There's also a formerly wealthy man who has apparently shot himself who has a substantial policy. The police are content to call it suicide, but Wright, is convinced it's murder, so he investigates against his client's interest. There are pretty girls, dangerous gamblers, and plenty of karate chops in this movie by William Rozier, based on a novel by the man who created Lemmy Caution.
It's a mediocre work, mostly because it doesn't make any sense, and neither do the solutions to the mysteries. Instead, it's bits and bobs that have been in other movies: a popular-style song, a karate-chopping detective, and so forth.
There are people who think the French make much better movies than Americans do. Here's an exhibit that proves they make bad movies too. We just don't to see as many of them because, well, people want to see good movies. It also raises the issue of the auteur theory of film making: if Godard and John Ford and Orson Welles are auteurs because they write a direct their own movies, then what are we to make of Edward D. Wood Jr., Abel Gance, and Willy Rozier, all of whom are held in low regard by the Cahiers de Cinema crowd? While it is true that the occasional genius can produce a great work of art operating without the front-office suits interfering with him, there are just as many mediocre auteurs and probably more bad ones; the suits like a track record that indicates competence. While Rozier's works in general and this one in particular are good enough to survive on a double or triple bill, this is one auteur that isn't making anyone gasp in pleasure.
