La sedia a rotelle

The turn of the decade (sixties/seventies) was Chabrol 's heyday.To reproduce his (commercial and critical) success,the same ingredients were chosen(a murder mystery,a bourgeois house,Stephane Audran,Chabrol's then wife playing parts of twin sisters -after Olivia de Havilland,why not her?-,Chabrol in the flesh in a cameo -he's the Pullman's inspector-)to give the flick the aura of .... an ersatz Chabrol movie.There are ,at a pinch ,two good suspenseful scenes; the wheelchair on the road,pursued by a car,and the hanged man in the graveyard which pack a real wallop.

Etienne Périer was to continue in the ersatz Chabrol vein with "la main à couper",but he was luckier with his "un si joli village" (1978) which was closer to Cayatte/Boisset social criticism.

Belgian-born Etienne Perier is not a name that stands out among French cinema directors, and in UN MEURTRE EST UN MEURTRE (MURDER IS MURDER) he passes up on a good opportunity to do better, especially in view of the cast made available to him.

Male lead Jean-Claude Brialy sadly has an accident with wealthy wife Stephane Audran who becomes wheel chair-ridden, and resentful of his ongoing affair with stunning clothes shop attendant Catherine Spaak. To cut a long story short, despite her paralysis, Audran is still able to drive her car but apparently forgets to use the hand brake and it slides down a slope and kills her as she goes down the middle of the road (none too careful, is she?)

The real baffler to me is why Director Perier decided to show that sequence as the intro to the film, and he repeats it some 30 minutes later.

That is when blackmailer Robert Hossein and police inspector Michel Serrault appear on screen, both delivering credible performances. For the record, both Brialy and Serrault would come out of the closet a few years later, and apparently had the hots for each other during this film. Spaak and Audran must have felt underused...

The script by Dominique Fabre makes very economic use of logic. Why Audran should have a sister who wants to wear a wig like her and go around in a wheelchair like her is baffling to put it mildly. That, in addition, she should pick up a revolver and fire six shots into the night after police inspectors approach her place is only made more incredible by the fact that Hossein had just shown her how to use the gun because she had never fired a shot in her life!

Toward the end, I did not know - and did not care - whether Audran was Marie or Anne any more. She was misused in the double role but at least Perier gave her the chance to show off her delicious legs as she ditches the wheelchair and shows Brialy and Spaak that she can walk.

The ending, with Brialy and Spaak laughing as they shove the empty wheelchair down a street, and it poses a threat to potential oncoming drivers, is one of the stupidest I have ever seen.

Effective cinematography by Marcel Grignon. 6/10.

Stéphane Audran has been in a wheelchair for years, since she and her husband, Jean-Claude Brialy were in an auto accident. Her disposition has, shall we say, soured over the years, and she orders Brialy's mistress, Catherine Spaak, to give him up. At home they get into an argument, and he locks her in; with the servants gone, he believes he will have a couple of days free. But she manages to get outside. Her wheelchair loses control, and she winds up dead. Inspector Michel Serrault clears him, and he can inherit his wife's enormous estate. There is one small catch, which he doesn't mind: he has to give her sister -- also played by Mlle Audran -- five hundred francs a month, and she is to live at his house. At least, he doesn't mind until she puts on a wig, sits down in her sister's wheelchair, and insists that he's trying to kill her to Serrault. Also Robert Hossein shows up and insists that Brialy pay him for killing his wife. Hossein also begins fabricating evidence that Brialy committed the murder.

There are one or two psychological points in this psychological thriller directed by Etienne Périer that I don't find convincing. This, despite them specifically being addressed at the end. Probably it was the discontent at their continuing absurdity throughout that lingered.

Nonetheless, as matters progress in logical but unforeseen manners, I found myself continually engaged by this mordant story. A small role for director Claude Chabrol as a half-blind railroad guard was a sizable asset, as well as a key role by Michel Creton as a pharmacist whose shop is next to Mlle. Spaak's.