The Seventh Juror

This film is a precursor in court drama and suspense. It is also a clever criticism of French bourgeois society as symbolised by the gatherings of the city notables at the local pub or the main protagonist's wife.

Grégoire Duval (Bernard Blier), one of the most upstanding citizens in his provincial French town, commits a spur-of-the-moment crime of passion and subsequently gets picked for the jury when a man with a dubious past goes on trial for the murder. Grégoire's probing questions get the man acquitted but in the eyes of the community, the defendant's still a killer and when Grégoire eventually confesses to the crime, nobody wants to hear it...

Director Georges Lautner's extremely satisfying film noir also doubles as an autopsy of cold, cruel, hypocritical bourgeois values and is not unlike "Madame Bovary" in that respect. The philosophically resigned voice-over narration of a man tormented not only by what he's done but by the way his entire life played out has a chilling effect and it's a dark universe, indeed, right down to THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS ending (on Christmas Eve, no less). There's bitter irony to spare with a dazed walk through nocturnal city streets present in some of the finest noir such as ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS and BLAST OF SILENCE and director Georges Lautner (who'd go on to make the giallo-esque ROAD TO SALINA with Rita Hayworth & Mimsy Farmer) gives the bleak proceedings a grey, misty patina that doesn't go away, even in the daytime. The Francis Didelot novel the film is based on was adapted in the U.S. a year earlier for an episode of THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR called "The Star Juror" and the timeless tale was also turned into a 2008 TV movie in it's native France. 10/10!

Amazing film. amazingly shot, the first sequence got me totally off guard with its overwhelming and amazing soundtrack and its dream like directing style.

Le septième juré was most likely one of the most depressing films i have ever seen, it had no redeemable characters besides Sautral and Catherine and essentially nothing good ever happens, it is almost like a kafkian nightmare. Still, unlike most polar i have seen so far, it manages to be ambiguous enough to keep it from being too preachy and moralistic.i am also really grateful for how, despite how the characters see her, Catherine was treated with a certain distance and lack of judgement by the film. That made the film seem more like a comment on how moralistic and hypocritical are some spheres of society, in this case, the political and bourgeois classes. I also thought it was a really smart way to deal with the issue by making the lead character at the same time regret what he did while not exonerating him of all the guilt. Not to mention that making him, a calm and respectable man rather than a criminal or an angry man or a jealous husband or a drug user commit the crime raises the question of why would someone do that. This unanswered question instead of making the discourse seem incomplete deepens greatly the ideological reach of the film BECAUSE it leaves room for interpretation. So in short, very interesting film and considering how dark it is, quite an easy watch.

Sometimes ago, I read the comments on Le 7ème Juré, which opened my interest to have a look on it. Though Bernard Blier has never been someone I liked very much, perhaps only for his cold demeanor...

Possibly not explainable, or just because occasionally you like someone you don't know, and you have no apparent sympathy for another one... it just goes by feeling.

I have still no "ellective affinities" with BB (not Brigitte Bardot, don't get me wrong! :) but his fine performance reminds me his other movies in which he plays. Amici miei (Mario Monicelli 1975) is one example that comes to my mind... (much more enjoyable, only because it's a kind of comedy)

My apologizes to Blier : he's pretty good ! Once more !

They are pretty good, too, in that small town, with the conspiracy of silence, and indulgence for the good society. What can be said, what should not... an so forth!

Lautner is also not known to me to make very funny nor good films, but mildly diverting ones. Sorry for his fan! Now, in that one, possibly his cinematographic achievement, he demonstrates an accurate vision of human society.

And as said by another comment I wonder why he didn't use this creative force to make more ones like Le 7ème Juré.

For me, it is not possible to like this movie: it is too true, to well describing how it goes and functions everywhere... But it's an excellent one!

Critical, cynical, clinical and desperate : great drama/thriller

One may, like me, not like it but still appreciate it, as I did : great cinema !

Bernard Blier is proving on this movie that he was not just a comic actor, but a great actor, at the service of a very fine director, George Lautner who had a great carrer (it was his 6th movie). The scenario describes how a society can be totally absurd, and how to turn justice in a very bizarre frame.