Der sechste Mann

This Decoin effort has still got a good reputation in France.It's far from perfect though and the problem is that the screenplay hesitates between pure film noir and comedy.Besides, writer Albert Simonin is not Georges Simenon;nor is he Boileau-Narcejac or Frédéric Dard: the lines are witless and the suspense scenes almost brainless:how can we believe (and how can the head warden?)in three suicides which all take place in a prison?

Five thieves steal jewels ,and,as an "alibi",burglarize a Pastis distillery: one year imprisonment . But someone is doing away with the five accomplices :and then there were two.What was possible in Lacombe's "Le Dernier des Six" -one of the men of the gang gets rid of the others to get the whole loot- is unconvincing in a jail where wardens are supposed to keep a close watch on you .You must be very gullible to believe such a story.

There's an attempt at a social comment:when of the prisoners's girlfriend (Anouk Aimée) comes to visit her squeeze ,they can't say a single world in the visitors room.The gloomy atmosphere of the visitors' room does not make it a nice place to be.This is probably the best scene of the whole film.

Despite the appetizing genre-hopping as described above, "Tous Peuvent Me Tuer" is not one of the better Henri Decoin films I've seen lately. Too long, too talky, a little too much of the comic-relief prison warden (he is even top-billed!). And Anouk Aimée is mostly wasted.