Une manche et la belle

"What Price Murder?" suffers from a way, way, way too sluggish first half where almost nothing happens and which could potentially cause viewers to shut the film off early: it largely appears to be a travelogue of the French Riviera and the Italian Venice, but for that purpose it would have benefitted majorly from being shot in color. The film does get better in the second half, when it embraces the pulpiness (and the bleakness) of James Hadley Chase's story: there are some interesting plot developments and one "bit of business", in particular, involving a phone call and a recording machine, that I would honestly describe as brilliant. Still, that is not enough to recover from the sluggishness of the first half. Mylene Demongeot is very good here and shows again why she was arguably Bardot's most serious French rival at that time. ** out of 4.