Les aveux les plus doux

This plot would have been perfect for French directors such as Yves Boisset or Costa Gavras, and certainly not Edouard Molinaro whose filmography proposes nearly only comedies, except this one, LES AVEUX LES PLUS DOUX, UN TEMOIN DANS LA VILLE and LE GANG DES OTAGES. And it remains very efficient, powerful, splendidly done, especially from a comedy specialist. But after all, Dino Risi, Richard Quine, or Blake Edwards - comedies specialists - also gave us tremendous and gritty crime films. RAPT A L'ITALIENNE for Risi; PUSHOVER for Quine and EXPERIMENT IN TERROR for Edwards; and I forgot Cedric Klapish - comedy French director - who gave us NI POUR NI CONTRE, BIEN AU CONTRAIRE. But here, the message is very daring, subtle, in the best Boisset and Gavras way, an attack against police methods. In the seventies, everything, anything was permitted. This time is now gone forever. I guess this Roger Hanin's performance helped him to be chosen twenty years later for NAVARRO.....Just a joke, folks. Just a joke.

In the early seventies ,a lot of people thought that Marc Porel was one of the promising young French actors and it was only a question of time before he became a star.It never happened.With hindsight,it is easy to see why:his swagger,his acting and his look ,all was too Alain Delon-like .But the times were changing and the audience was ready for a new actors generation who was about to happen :Gerard Depardieu,Patrick Deware and their followers buried Marc Porel who had to continue his career in Italy and died prematurely ,at an early age (33 )."Les Aveux Les Plus Doux" is all the more moving since Porel shares two scenes with his father,Gerard Landry ,cast as Lopez ,a Circus owner.

Based on a play Roger Hanin performed on stage ,Molinaro's directing shows little flair to turn this drama into a film.Although excellent ,Noiret and Hanin seem sometimes to be on a stage .Mankiewicz,Molinaro is not.His "in camera" drama ,which essentially takes place in a police station ,a la "Detective story" ,bears the appropriate scars of the era: cops roughness had become a cliché (see also Marcel Carné's "les Assassins de l'Ordre " the same year) in the wake of the events of May 68.Also handicapped by a syrupy score.

Watchable because of the excellent cast:playing opposite opposite Hanin and Noiret was no easy task and Marc Porel managed quite well.On the other hand,Caroline Cellier's role is too underwritten to give this excellent actress a scene to shine.