125 rue Montmartre

Andréa Parisy is worth watching this movie. She's extremely beautiful, in my opinion. She always reminded me of Maria Callas, and a little of Audrey Hepburn.

Well, what about the movie? I like French movies as well as I like Italian ones. So I definitely am prejudiced. This one here is rather OK, not sooo really good. The story is rather poor, at least from a 2023's point of view. A naive guy (Lino Ventura) is trying to help a pseudo-psycho who actually is the lover of the rich man's wife. She murders her husband to get all of his money. Old story. However, the pictures of Paris in the late 1950s are great. And the rich man's wife is a feast for the eyes. Andréa Parisy is definitely one of the most beautiful ladies ever.

In Paris, the newspaper seller Pascal (Lino Ventura) is a simple, but honest man respected by his friends. He has a love affair with Germaine "Mémène" Montillie (Dora Doll), who works distributing newspaper to the sellers. One day, Pascal is resting nearby the Sena, he sees a man jumping into the water of the rives trying to commit suicide. Pascal saves him and the man, Didier Barrachet (Robert Hirsch), tells him that he is in unrequited love with his wife, Catherine Barrachet (Andréa Parisy), but his brother-in-law Phillipe Barrachet (Alfred lAdam) and she want to intern him in a mental institution to steal his wealth. Pascal brings Didier home and help him to prove that he is telling the truth. He also visits Catherine that confirms Didier's story. Out of the blue, Didier is murdered at home and Pascal is accused of killing him. But when Pascal looks at the body, the man is not Didier. But the smart inspector Dodelot (Jean Desailly) wants more evidences to blame Pascal.

"125 rue Montmartre" (1959) is a pleasant French film-noir, with Lino Ventura in the role of a good man. The story is sordid, with Robert Hirsch and Andréa Parisy framing the street vendor. Jean Desailly performs an intelligent and witty police inspector that uses his experience to resolve the case. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Caso da Rua Montmartre" ("The Case of the Montmartre Street")

The chemistry between Lino Ventura and Robert Hirsch is great to watch. A great movie.

Another of my favourite films to have been reissued on DVD by Réné Château, who, as usual, haven't had the good (commercial) sense to include subtitles on their DVD so that deaf French viewers and all other prospective foreign viewers can appreciate the film - incredible !

This story and the film are the embodiment of Paris of the late 1950's with all its charm - so different from the ugly Paris of today ! Lino Ventura, one of the great franco-Italian actors sadly no longer with us plays the part of Pascal a "crieur" or newspaper seller on the banks of the Seine who unfortunately gets involved in a sinister plot hatched by a woman and her lover who want to get rid of the woman's husband.

The story is very well done and the quality is equal to that of some of Alfred Hitchcock's earlier films. I love the theme music by Jean Yatove, which cannot be found any where on cd to my great dismay, and this music is typical of the late 1950's. So beyond the story itself ( which is more interesting first time round when you don't know the outcome ) the film has the interest for me as a living documentary of Paris of that era - we get to see quite a number of the different streets of Paris, the banks of the Seine, and how the "popular" or "working" parisian lives, as opposed to the touristy cabaret areas !

I would seriously recommend this film more than any other to someone wishing to "taste" the atmosphere of that era in Paris, an atmosphere long lost to the annals of time ! Another good film for this kind of thing would be "Voici le Temps des Assassins" starring Jean Gabin. One funny thing, the title 125 rue Montmartre has absolutely no relevance in the film at all, and would appear to have been thought up by its director on the spur of the moment for want of something better !

Gilles Grangier was never looked upon as an auteur and a lot of his sixties movies are really bad.But the fifties display a more interesting choice of movies:Bertrand Tavernier, a famous FRench director and a very demanding critic, admires "le sang à la tête " , "gasoil" and "le désordre et la nuit",the latter being probably his best work.

"125 rue Montmartre" ,more a Boileau-Narcejac("Diabolique" )detective story style than a true film noir,is quite entertaining ,and ,given the stranglehold the nouvelle vague began to have on the French cinema,it's almost a breath of fresh air.Although by no means a nouvelle vague movie,by a long shot (there were detective films among the nouvelle vague movies,"ascenseur pour l'échaffaud" is a prominent example,"a bout de soufflé" is another one),it shares with the young Turks a shooting on location,in the streets of Paris,with its bistros,its newspaper sellers and even its large impressive houses.

The first part introduces the leads:Ventura is a newspaper seller, a loud-mouth who does not stop talking,particularly when he's eating;Hirsh is his contrary: a nervous man,on the verge of madness ,who seems to be in jeopardy.His wife,he says ,tries to drive him insane to latch on to his valuable properties.But are thing really what they seems? Pretty soon,Ventura realizes he's framed.There's a very good supporting cast including Jean Desailly as an astute cop,Andréa Parisy,Dora Doll,and Alfred Adam.

The climax of the movie remains the scenes in the circus where suddenly Grangier stops his narration to focus on a clown act which segues into an impressive ending,which could make any B movie director proud.