Without Apparent Motive

... and his best.All that he made afterward can easily be dismissed as rubbish.A journalist -he also wrote words for some songs- he dreamed of the American cinema because he spent some of his youth on the other side of the pond.

Actually,we're closer to Agatha Christie's whodunit than to American film noir.It's not a problem.It's better to have a good imitation of a detective story à la "and then there were none" than a pale reflection of Wise or Hawks.One by one,people who did something nasty in the past are slain and detective Trintignant is here to solve the mystery ,a mystery which entertains the audience till the very end .Outside Trintignant,the cast is very odd,including French crooner Sacha Distel,as an emcee of a stupid radio contest (a wonderful spoof) ,Segal, who wrote "love story" ,Chabrol's then-wife (and ex-wife of Trintignant)and best actress Stephane Audran,Italian not yet sex symbol Laura Antonelli ,here cast against type,Jean-Pierre Marielle...

Very entertaining.

Good solid thriller with fine central performance from Jean Louis Trintignant and very decent score from Morricone. Taught, interesting, involving and amusing from start to finish this good looking film has much to offer including some strange casting and an understated but sleazy background.

Erich Segal, writer of Love Story and person responsible for the screen play of Yellow Submarine(!) plays an off the wall astrologer and ex-wife of Trintignant and then wife of Chabrol turns up with bulging bust looking extremely sexy. Singer Sacha Distel is another surprising performer and does well as a TV presenter. The action takes place in and around Nice and more particularly around its harbour as a sniper begins to kill, seemingly at random, or 'Without Apparent Motive'.

The movie is based on a book by McBain. Never having read the book I can't comment on the fidelity of the adaptation. However, the movie deals with some themes dear to McBain's heart : the difficulty and responsibility of detective work ; the speed at which a problem can turn into a circus, a stampede or a political affair ; the difficulty of policing a modern city where almost all citizens (good or bad) can hide, morph and reinvent themselves. (If you're living in a large city : would you be willing to swear that the kindly gentleman sitting on a park bench and feeding the pigeons is indeed a retired high school teacher, and not an Israeli spy master or a judo instructor kicked out of the Navy Seals for excessive brutality ?) There is also a nicely satirical edge to the work.

The translation to French society works well and the sun-drenched city of Nice is nicely juxtaposed with the relentlessly "noir" atmosphere. The masterful Morricone music evokes a general sense of wrongness and menace.

It should be noted that Trintignant's inspector Carella is not an agreeable man : he alternates between gruff boorishness and solitary misanthropy, while exuding a smoldering, barely contained anger. One senses that any pimply teenager foolish enough to go "oink, oink" in his vicinity would become the owner of a bullet through the brain in two minutes flat. As an approach to community police work this would not be entirely without merit - but still.

Jean Louis Trintignant is terrific in this well-plotted and stylish thriller. An investigation of apparently motiveless murders really hits close to home when the former mistress of the detective becomes a victim just minutes after talking to him. The solution to the murders is utterly logical and utterly surprising. Trintgnant has the same magnetic screen presence he had in "Z", but here he actually gets to do things like deliver lines! Dominique Sanda provides the eye-candy. For my money, this was one of the two best thrillers of 1972, the other being Hitchcock's "Frenzy." It doesn't appear to be available on videotape, but if you get a chance to see it, don't miss it.

I had seen this film in a cinema, years ago, when I was a youngster. Now, I have bought the video in a 2nd hand shop, and...

I has been delighted again with:

a) The plot: good thriller about a snipper who kills several high society persons.

b) The actors: Jean-Louis Trintigant is superb as a policeman,engaged in a difficult case. And he runs top speed...

c) The music: Morricone's score is perfect. It goes along very well and underline top moments.

To summarize: highly commandable film.