One more movie and Cayatte would broach his "championing the good causes" long period (from 1950 to the end of his career in the early eighties with few exceptions: "Le Miroir à Deux Faces " Nip and Tuck of the fifties and a Hitchcockesque "Piège Pour Cendrillon" ):child abduction,euthanasia,miscarriages of justice,death penalty,corrupt judges,even eye for an eye ,tooth for a tooth ("Oeil pour Oeil" was one of his titles.
His fin de decade movies predate the long series which began with "Justice est Faite" in 1950;Old melodrama "Roger la Honte" was nothing but a miscarriage of justice;and "Les Amants de Verone" ,which is considered his best film ,featured a "trial" and a judge who kept in a box all the last cigarette butts of the people he had sentenced to death.
Like in "Les Amants de Verone" ,the star is Serge Reggiani.Although it is primarily a detective story ,with a trick (the ice) Agatha Christie would not disown,there are elements which predate the impending "justice for all" era : the corrupt cop who is not afraid to have an innocent arrested ,hints at "relations with some politicians " which the dead crook would have had.All that takes a back seat to the thriller side though.Madeleine Sologne and her lover Paul Meurisse are eager to get the money of her late husband's life insurance;alas it does not work if it's a suicide .So it can be a murder provided there is a culprit.
