Wednesday 4 March 2009

A DOUBLE TOUR (1959)

Back in the Sixties I saw A DOUBLE TOUR on the BBC and really enjoyed it. I've wanted to see it again ever since. If I knew it was by Claude Chabrol I must have forgotten because this would have made me want to see it even more. Nobody dissects the French bourgoisie like Chabrol. Seeing it again after all these years held a couple of surprises. It was indeed directed by Chabrol and it did not star Maurice Ronet (as I've always been convinced it did) and, surprisingly, I had no recollection of ever having seen it before! But, despite this, I still enjoyed it. The movie forms a sort of unofficial trilogy with two other Chabrol films - THE CHAMPAGNE MURDERS and TEN DAYS WONDER. A rich family, a chateau, family secrets and hidden passions bubbling beneath the surface and...of course...murder. This is early Chabrol and it is not very difficult to pick out the murderer (anybody who walks like that has to be a suspect!) but then the murder (which when we see it in flashback is very well done) has never been the the thing for M.Claude who is more interested in the disintegration of those caught up in the crime as it eats away at the belly of society. The star is Jean-Paul Belmondo, fresh from BREATHLESS, and a bit over the top. Rating ***

1 comment:

Aaron White said...

For what its worth, I thought Slumdog Millionaire was worth a watch, but not nearly as good as most people made it out to be