Highway Pick-Up

A job goes wrong for two safe-crackers and a security guard is murdered. The thief who committed the murder escapes punishment and his partner is convicted for the crime he was responsible for. After being sentenced to twenty years, he uses his skills to escape and winds up befriending a man who owns a cafe/filling station in the mountains. When his young wife discovers the safe-cracker's past, she blackmails him into opening her husband's safe. Needless to say, the husband catches them in the act and is accidentally killed in the process. Not long after the ex-partner hooks up with his colleague on the run and the plot thickens further.

This French crime-drama is an example of a very dark neo-noir. Every character we encounter in the cast is bad on at least some level. It's a world populated with people of different shades of dark grey, with greed and lust the main emotions of motivation. At the centre of the drama is an anti-hero who is caught in a web spun by a femme fatale, who is out to get all she can. But these are no one dimensional characters, for example the gold digging young wife acts very selfishly, yet you do sort of sympathise with her powerless position in life as a possession of her old and unattractive husband; while at the same time we understand the reasons why everyone does what they do, they all seem to be caught in traps of some kind or other. Acting is very good with Robert Hossein leading the piece and Jean Sorel his partner in crime, but perhaps it is Catherine Rouvel who is most memorable as the femme fatale whose actions propel the drama into tragedy.

CHAIR DE POULE is not one of Director Duvivier's finest works, but worth watching all the same.

It starts very strongly, with Hossein and Sorel surprised by the early return of the homeowners during the commission of a robbery. Sorel kills the owner but Hossein is the one who gets shot by police and bundled into jail for 20 years, although his first is spent in a sanatorium due to a bullet in the lung. Guess what? The innocent Hossein, who had never intended to be involved in the robbery in the first place, manages to break free thanks to police negligence.

Just as he did not utter a word about Sorel to police upon detention, so he moves quietly out of circulation without any ill feelings. He comes across Thomas, who owns a diner cum gas station well out of the beaten track - and a sizzling bombshell of a wife (Rouvel) to boot.

That he is immediately interested in her is obvious, but he is too loyal and respectful of Thomas to make the first move. No such worries for Rouvel, though: even as she hugs her hubby she gives him the big come on. And so begins a part of CHAIR DE POULE reminiscent of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.

But things begin to go wrong when Thomas' brother comes around to pick things for free while the sibling is away. In fact, Thomas' brother is probably the most perfidious low life of all the low lives on display in this very noir film noir. Hossein makes an enemy out of him and from that point on things begin to go awry for all concerned.

I think the off camera killing of Rouvel lets the movie down. It is sprung on the viewer without any explanation, and the ending is a bit of a mess. Even so, CHAIR is interesting, a typical 1950s film noir shot in 1963. I think it would have gained from a better trinity of leading actors - say, Belmondo, Trintignant and Moreau; or Montand, Ronet and Lafont - and a better script.

Despite its flaws, it is well worth watching - especially the first 90 minutes.

A plot thickens in the middle of nowhere in the south of France in the 60s.

The atmosphere is thrilling, with humorous scenes, moments of sexual tension and gangster action.

The soundtrack is astonishing, creating a tension on the edge of your skin through exaggerated sound effects or underlining surreal situations with crazy music.

The actors are just perfect.

A Duvivier masterpiece worth rediscovering, notice his sense of drama staging the American night, framing these lost places: a garage-restaurant night and day, chases on a mountainside... In short, a zigzag story full of twists and turns!

Robert Hossein and Jean Sorel are locksmiths who decide to rob a rich man whose safe they have recently repaired. But the man and his wife return unexpectedly and they kill the man. Sorel gets away, but Hossein is convicted of murder. Two years later, he escapes from prison and meets Georges Wilson in the Maritime Alps. Wilson takes him to his truck stop and diner where his sluttish young wife, Catherine Rouvel....

Sounds like THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, doesn't it? For half the movie it looks like it it. But this is from a novel by James Hadley Chase, and the director is Julien Duvivier. Duvivier's movies were one of the sources of film noir, but it's not the world that is corrupt, it's the people in the story he is telling. In the 1930s, his brand of poetical realism was tempered by having Jean Gabin in his movies,. Now, however, the principals are not doomed through the workings of fate, but by their weakness and evil. Sometimes society will exact the price. If not, then there is always the universe.

In France ,nobody did film noirs like Duvivier.They say he invented the genre with his "Pepe le Moko" (1937).Duvivier's films noirs are as pessimistic as it can be.His characters are pitiful at best or evil.All along his brilliant career,from "Poil de Carotte" to "La fin du Jour" to "voici le temps des assassins",Duvivier was the poet of the blackness of the human soul,he used to paint the inmost depths of greed and perversity.Chabrol has sometimes equaled him ,never surpassed.Along with Clouzot,he reigns over the French film noir.

"Chair de poule " :those were the days of the Nouvelle Vague and Duvivier's work was dismissed as cheesy "cinema de qualité".Those were the days.But Duvivier's work survived.Hadley Chase's book resembles "the postman always rings twice" but Duvivier manages to take its noir side to new limits.In Cain's work,love did exist between the two leads.Here greed ,rapaciousness.Nothing else.Welcome to Duvivier's world.

As I wrote above ,Duvivier's characters are either pitiful and meek (Daniel,Thomas) or pure evil(Maria,the old man and his ugly offspring ,Paul).The odd couple (the not-so-handsome hubby and his sexy wife) was already in "Voici le temps des assassins"(1956).The only living being we can trust seems to be a dog ,an animal that plays an important part in both movies.Maria (Catherine Rouvel) recalls often Catherine (Danielle Delorme) but her sensuality is more aggressive .

Duvivier 's directing is perfect :he treats one of his scenes like a true western:"this is the Wild West" Paul says while entering the eating-house.And Rouvel ,trying to learn the combination of the safe from a wounded Hossein,reminds me of Von Stroheim's "greed". Duvivier avoids all the easy way outs ,all the Hollywood tricks, and his movies are among the few we can call "genuine" film noirs.The last part,which drags all the characters towards doom,culminates in an apocalyptic scene ,with the final pictures depicting Hell's antechamber.

Although not looked upon as one of Duvivier's best,"Chair de poule " was great ,coming from a sixty-something who had perhaps never made a truly bad film.

A remake was filmed in Thailand.