À Double Tour [Leda] *** (1959, Antonella Lualdi, Jacques Dacqmine, Madeleine Robinson, Bernadette Lafont, Jean-Paul Belmondo) – Classic Movie Review 5354

Director Claude Chabrol’s 1959 Hitchcockian suspense thriller is good if not his best. But it is engagingly told in slick, colourful style with self-conscious flashbacks, witty dialogue and a surprise finish. It is Chabrol’s third film but first thriller, which provided his bread and butter hereafter.

Antonella Lualdi stars as Leda, the mistress of rich wine merchant Henri Marcoux (Jacques Dacqmine) who is murdered. The Marcoux family accuses the maid’s friend Roger the milkman (Mario David) of the killing. And then there is much trouble with Henri’s widow Thérèse Marcoux (Madeleine Robinson), daughter Elisabeth (Jeanne Valérie), son Richard Marcoux (André Jocelyn), Julie the maid (Bernadette Lafont) and her no-good fiancé Laszlo Kovacs (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who thinks the milkman didn’t do it.

Some of the acting really catches the eye, particularly from Robinson, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in in 1959, Lafont and young Belmondo, rehearsing for Breathless (1960). Henri Decaë’s cinematography also catches the eye.

The screenplay by Paul Gégauff and Claude Chabrol is based on the novel The Key to Nicholas Street by American writer Stanley Ellin.

Also in the cast are André Jocelyn, Jeanne Valérie, Mario David, Laszlô Szabô, André Dino as the police inspector, Raymond Pélissier as the gardener and Claude Chabrol in a cameo as a passerby.

It is also known as Web of Passion and Leda.

Laszlo Kovacs is the alias of Belmondo’s character Michel Poiccard in Breathless (1960).

It follows Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge (1958) and Les Cousins (1959).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 5354

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com