Le concerto de la peur

Probably best known in America for Chet Baker's marvellous free-jazz score (rivalling Miles Davis's for "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud"), this is a cheaply made but enjoyably atmospheric and idiosyncratic crime movie. A couple of Parisian drug gangs (one led by a blind, philosophical, trumpet-playing boss) are battling over turf, leading to kidnappings, beatings, murders, betrayals and other intrigues. And this being a José Benazeraf film, there are timeouts for stolen lust, striptease and a great cat fight.

Like all JB's early films, the action scenes are a bit slipshod, and the dialog and acting at times risible (or at least campy), but he has a fine sense for composition and a wonderful manner of elegantly posing (and, with females, draping) his characters against gritty backdrops. He always managed to cast strikingly sensuous, angel-faced women in strong roles, never more so than in this picture. If you're looking for that enigmatic, self-consciously noirish late-show style of Sam Fuller, or Lemmy Caution (but more intellectually inclined), or early Hollywood-quoting Godard (but less intellectually inclined), then you'll get it in spades here.

Apparently, the notorious L.A. schlockmeister Bob Cresse picked this little number up, cut and added some footage, and released it as "Night of Lust", earning a tidy profit.

Before becoming "the father of hard -core pornography in France " ,José Bénazéraf made a bunch of would be intellectual cheap films noirs ,each one lousier than the one before ; like in his so called "masterpiece" "Jo Caligula -Du Suif chez les dabes" , this director made several attempts to establish himself as "meaningful" "deep" ,film noir philosopher ,but his screenplays are not original enough to justify the banality of his "insights" ; dubbed in English ,the actors might delude the viewers into thinking they are champions of underplaying ;:in the orginal version ,it's a disaster : acting is downright amateurish -with the exception of Kalfon- ,verging on ludicrous :Yvonne Monlaur's dreary delivery is so abysmal she's a contender for the worst French actress of all time ;no wonder her career did not survive the sixties.

After the pretentious intellectual warning ,it takes 13 minutes before the cast and credits appear (which ,in a 72-minute flick, is quite original); the story is the umpteenth tale of drug-traffickers who take a hostage ,a good girl (there's also a bad one ,mind you ,and both do not get on very well); jazzy music by Chet Baker is the only artistic feature of a dud.

And please ,don't compare it with Samuel Fuller : the contemporary "the naked kiss",for instance , had a mind-blowing screenplay and a powerful actress (Constance Towers );these directors are worlds apart.

This film was a lot more then I expected. There is some really nice cinematography of Paris, circa the early 1960's. The movies plot is not that important here. The film is about rival gangs in Paris trying to control the Heroin Trade, but the gangsters take long breaks to watch beautiful nude dancers. The entire film is a free jazz score by Chet Baker. This amazing score is worth the price of admission alone. It is one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard on any film regardless of era. The Night of Lust has an hysterical over dub. I am certain it was not meant to be so funny, but when I watched this film with a crowd in Portland, the place was in stitches. Bottom line. This film is amazing. Boobies, Baker and Beatings.

As a reviewer noted, Le concerto de la peur is more a series of set pieces and images than a plotted story. Baker's music is independent of the action and doesn't create an atmosphere or emotional cues like most soundtracks. It's as if the sound department just played a record just to have a music soundtrack. Still, it's worth watching just to hear Baker's work. The gangster war is done in a clumsy yet oddly naturalistic way--except for Yvonne Monlaur and Michel Lemoine making out in the woods next to dead gangsters and a burning car.

Yvonne Monlaur was best known for her starring roles in Anglo-Amalgamated's Circus of Horrors and Hammer's Terror of the Tongs and The Brides of Dracula. It was a surprise to see her bare-breasted a few years later in this film but then again, it's Benazeraf. Regine Rumen is used too sparingly as is Sylvie Breal. No one went to see this film for Michel Lemoine who was terrific at playing criminals, crazy guys and aliens.