13 French Street

Adapted from a noir best seller from Gil Brewer, this little cheap feature directed by Jean-Pierre Mocky is easily recognizable from its author. Mocky's trade mark is nearly every where, although less than in other movies. Not a comedy, even noir comedy, as we could expect, but so cheap. The usual scheme as we saw in old American noir films from the forties, the famous triangle: husband, wife and the lover; DOUBLE INDEMNITY, POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. One of the oldest scheme in film noir history. Two long time friends, and the wife of one of them who plans to get rid of her husband with the help of his best friend. But first, she have to waste her mother in law, a more than intruder in her own plans. And you have the foreseeable black mailer - Bruno Solo - who saw the old mother murder. Acting is not very good, as usual in Mocky's films, but that's his trade mark. The most surprising here is the lack of black humour, at least less than we could expect from Jean-Pierre Mocky, the most prolific French director, since more than fifty years now. He gives us one film each year.