Crime no Carro Dormitório

"The Sleeping Car Murders" is a quintessential and bona fide and prototypic Giallo, and yet at the same time … NOT a Giallo at all. Gialli are – generally speaking – Italian productions from the early 70's with a script written directly for the screen. "The Sleeping Car Murders" is French, released during the mid 60's (when Mario Bava only just kick-started the Giallo concept in Italy) and the script was adapted from a novel by Sébastien Japristot. Surely both Japristot and director Costa-Gavras didn't had a clue what a Giallo in fact was and simply aimed to deliver a good old-fashioned whodunit that would keep the reader/viewer guessing until the very end. Well, the least you could say is … they succeeded! "The Sleeping Car Murders" is an engaging, intelligent and convoluted murder-mystery with a tremendous amount of effective red herrings, detailed character drawings and one perplexedly flawless conclusion. I honestly can't fathom why this movie is so little known, especially since it concerns the writer of "A Very Long Engagement" and the director of the political top thriller "Z". If this exact same story were filmed by, say, Alfred Hitchcock, I bet the film would have ranked high in this website's top 250.

Speaking of Hitchcock; several of his film revolved on the potentially perfect murder plot (like "Strangers on a Train", "Dial M for Murder"…) but – in my humble opinion – this is the film which comes up with the most ideal and waterproof scheme to get away with murder. I've rarely been overwhelmed and impressed as much as when upon witnessing the denouement of "The Sleeping Car Murders". Obviously I can't reveal too much about the climax, but it's so damn great that I really was almost tempted to select some random people and try out the formula myself! Six strangers share a compartment on the night train to Paris, one of them being a fare dodger who met up with a cute young girl in the compartment itself. The next morning one of travelers, a woman, lies murdered in her bed and a hugely complicated police investigation led by the cynical Inspector Graziani ensues. The next following days, however, the other residents of the compartment are murdered – Agatha Christie style - in cold blood as well, as if the killer wants to eliminate all potential witnesses before they have a chance to talk to the police. With the number of compartment survivors rapidly decreasing, the fare dodger and his girlfriend will have to seek protection before the killer finds them.

The set-up of "The Sleeping Car Murders" is brilliant, without any form of exaggeration, and the tight screenplay fills in every tiny detail and remains always several steps ahead of even the cleverest viewers. The plot patiently takes its time to draw a detailed portrait of every witness and, since they each have their own dark secrets and suspicious characteristics, they could all be the culprits. The structure and unfolding of the plot is truly genius here. Whenever you're sure you figured out the killer's identity, he/she gets killed or some other type of twist points out he/she couldn't have done it. The film also gives some marvelous and realistic insight into the progress of a police murder investigation, like stressed Inspectors, false attention-seeking witnesses, dead-end leads, media circuses and a lot of hatred from wrongfully accused suspects. The entire cast and crew also contributes a great deal to the high level of brilliance of the film as well. This may perhaps have been Costa-Gavras' long-feature debut as a director, but his obvious talents and straightforward vision place his right away up there with the greatest film-makers ever. The performances, particularly from Simone Signoret and Yves Montand, are just as top-notch as every other tiniest detail in the rest of this ingenious but shamefully overlooked production.

This twisted cop mystery follows the efforts of the overworked Paris police to solve first, a murder in a couchette car, the dead body discovered only after all the other passengers left, and then the strange necking of many of the others before the cops can get to talk to them. There is great acting here from Signoret, Montand and others, and very amusing supporting parts (the seasoned crook and talker Bob will have you cracking up) but the film doesn't really hang together tight as a police mystery. I agree with an earlier reviewer that it spells trouble for you as a viewer that the passengers, whom we glimpse in half-darkness on the train, remain nameless for too long, and when they are identified by the police, the names are not steadily linked to faces.

It's confusing too that some of the characters suddenly muse into flashback kicking off from lines spoken to them on the train. This deepens them as characters but doesn't make the story concise. And at the police station, things are suddenly tossed in by phone calls in a way that looks haphazard. The root cause, I think, is that the film followed the book too closely, while Costa-Gavras knows how to create arresting, vivid scenes, he hasn't learnt at this point how to reimagine a storyline from writing so that it works on the screen, and so the movie seems a bit unfocused. When the final cause of the murders starts to crop up, it looks for too long like a joke element brought in for atmosphere.

It's not a bad movie at all; the photography is great, the final car chase is a winner (how often do you see a car chase in 1960s Paris?) and the acting is very good. Don't expect a murder story, though, with the tightness and relentless, upheld suspense of "Strangers On A Train" or even some episodes of "Columbo" or "Kojak".

And also the first film directed by Costa Gavras, very brilliant, tense, intelligent, compelling and grabbing for any audiences. Agatha Christie 's novels atmosphere, schemes, seems not being so far from this one. It is not AND THEN THEY WERE NONE either but I repeat, the suspense is there, all long. Sixties atmosphere and score too. Pierre Mondy and Yves Montand are excellent and the dialogues typically French of this period. Costa Gavras will find his way later with political oriented films, not only thriller as this one. He will be famous for this. A true little gem. And so many stars as Michel Piccoli, Simone Signoret, Jean Louis Trintignant, Charles Denner; at least at this time, 1965, they were not all stars, they were just in progress.

I saw this movie only once or twice -- on cable in the early 1980s, I think -- and it has remained one of my all-time favorites. It is filmed in black and white, and is a French police thriller seemingly populated with good-looking and sexy men, which is always an asset for me. I also love Simone Signoret and she is marvelous in this, as always. I think her daughter is in it, too, but I could be wrong. I cannot really review it because it is more or less a dim memory, but I remember being totally captivated by it. I have always looked out for it, but have not been able to either rent or buy it. I only remember excellent films, and I guarantee that any film buff would find this highly watchable and enjoyable.

Six people on a Marseilles-Paris sleeper carriage. One murder on arrival. Then a killing spree by an unknown assassin bent on wiping out all remaining passengers.

The Sleeping Car Murders is a French Hitchcockian thriller. It presents a pretty interesting puzzle to be solved, a mystery with a quite satisfying, clever resolution. In some other ways, aside from the Anglo-American Hitchcock influence it's a movie that also contains elements of the Italian giallo, what with its black gloved killer who prowls around bumping off each subsequent victim. It isn't as violent or salacious as the gialli though but it does have the sense of style associated with them. Although this one has a definite Gallic flavour with its Paris setting. It also has a very cool swinging 60's theme tune which adds to the overall chic value. Its plot is admittedly a little muddled at times and it's not always obvious who is who and what they are up to. But things do become clearer as the flick proceeds. It's certainly an interesting obscurity and should be of value for fans of post-noir. Look out too for an appearance by a young Jean-Louis Trintignant.