Nella notte cade il velo

"Toi le Venin" is Robert Hossein's masterpiece,and one of the great thrillers of the fifties.Based on a Frederic Dard novel,a writer the director often worked with (see also "le Monte-Charge" which Hossein did not direct but in which he was the lead too),the screenplay grabs you from the first pictures on a desert road by night where a beautiful blonde might be the fieriest of the criminals to the mysterious house where he finds his femme fatale ..and her sister.Then begins a cat and mouse play .One of the sisters is in a wheelchair .But is she really disabled?Which one is the criminal who tried to kill the hero on that night?

The two actresses,Marina Vlady and the late Odile Versois were sisters.

Turn off all the lights before watching.Highly suspenseful.

More "Riviera noir" as Robert Hossein directs and stars in a suspenseful "romantic" thriller that predicts the dysfunctional family dynamics of Robert Aldrich's WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? a half-decade later.

Canned TV personality Pierre Menda blew his last dime at the Nice casinos and hits the road on foot where he's offered a ride by a mysterious blonde in a white car and mink coat. He can't make out her face in the shadows but it doesn't matter once she pulls over and opens her coat to reveal that's all she's got on. They have sex and when it's over, she kicks him out of the car and tries to run him down but luckily Pierre manages to get the woman's license plate number before she speeds off into the night. This clue eventually leads him to a waterfront mansion where two blonde sisters live, one demure and the other vivacious despite being confined to a wheelchair. Neither one seems likely to be the wanton that raped him but curious nonetheless, he accepts their invitation to stay the night and it's not long before the sisters offer him a job, a place to live, and their love. Uh oh.

A throbbing jazz score and a bitterly ironic twist at the end top off what looks to be a reel family affair: director Hossein adapted his friend Frédéric Dard's pulp novel and co-starred with his wife, Marina Vlady, and sister-in-law Odile Versois. His father, André Hossein, composed the music.

Strange enough, all the previous comments merely described the beginning and left the details over. I feel a necessity to confirm that this is a family work, since Marina Vlady was also Robert Hossein's wife, and the - excellent - jazz music was written by te director's father, André. Under these circumstances, no wonder it was a really good thriller, seen when issued and immediately identified with the music. The suspense was flawless, and maintained throughout until the end. Robert Hossein, at the time one of the best European players, managed to impose himself also as a top screen and stage director. He's still putting up great stage shows, with a preference for religious subjects.harry carasso, Paris, France

A man looks for the mysterious young lady who tried to crush him one evening

One night, while he promenades in the streets of Nice, Victor Menda is accosted by a fair young lady in the steering wheel of Cadillac. The attractive creature, whose face stays in the shadow, invites Victor to rise, give herself fervently to him then stick him the cannon of a revolver on the temple and order him to get off. While he goes away, she tries to crush him. Victor just escapes death. Furious, he has the reflex to note the number of the car. A fast inquiry leads him around a big house where live two very resembling sisters, both fair.

A gripping start (accurately described by the lurid English title - "Nude in a White Car") for an intriguing, unpretentious mystery: it introduces three characters, it makes clear that one of the two is lying, and it puts you in the place of the third, trying to figure out which one. In an inspired bit of casting, real-life sisters Odile Versois and Marina Vlady, who bear a striking resemblance to each other, are cast as (half) sisters in the movie as well, which produces a Hitchcockian "blurring the lines" effect. **1/2 out of 4.