Un témoin dans la ville

This is really a minor work,but which retains a certain passé charm.The main asset of the movie is Henri Decae's cinematography ,as dazzling as usual.All the night scenes are impressive,the taxis gathering for the chase,the zoological garden with its nocturnal birds ,watching the fighting between the two men.

The screenplay is somewhat disappointing,coming for two writers of Boileau-Narcejac calibre(Vertigo,les diaboliques).There are few surprises,unexpected twists,the Boileau-Narcejac trademarks .The very first scene shows Hitchcock's influence ("shadow of a doubt").Lino Ventura is cast against type because he rarely plays the villains.

Perhaps which is to Molinaro's credit is his depiction of the taxi drivers.From their breakfast at dawn in the bistros where they enjoy coffee and croissants to the rooms where the operators send their messages to the drivers,these are charming vignettes of old Paris at the beginning of general De Gaulle mandate.

Edouard Molinaro's best film remains "la mort de Belle"(1963).His career is essentially commercial,the likes of "la cage aux folles" and "l'emmerdeur" (which was to become Billy Wilder's "buddy buddy").