Meurtre en 45 tours (1959)
Directed by Etienne Périer

Film Review

The phenomenal success of H.G. Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955) resulted in a spate of similar fiendishly contorted suspense thrillers on both sides of the Atlantic, most instantly forgettable although a few still stand up reasonably well.  Étienne Périer's Meurtre en 45 tours makes a fair stab at recreating the goosebump-inducing ambiance of Clouzot's warped little thriller, and whilst there are some plot similarities these prove to be misleading and give the film its essential element of surprise.  What the two films have in common is that they both derived from potboiler novels by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, a French writing team whose main claim to fame is that they provided the source novel for Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958).  They also scripted George Franju's Les Yeux sans visage (1960), possibly the most inspired and creepiest of French horror films.

Périer's screen adaptation of Boileau and Narcejac's novel  coeur perdu is more workmanlike than inspired, a lowkey thriller that holds the attention by the sheer ingenuity of the plot but fails to make much of a lasting impression.  Périer's attempts to imitate Clouzot come across as heavyhanded in a few scenes, and the ludicrously over-the-top score does little for the film's credibility, clumsily underscoring every plot twist with the subtlety of a heavy metal band performing in an echo chamber.  After a plodding first half which relies too heavily on the charm and charisma of its lead actress - Danielle Darrieux at her most radiant in her middle years - the film finally gets under way with its first surprising twist.  From then on, things improve greatly as the heroine succumbs to a Machiavellian plot to drive her out of her mind, in a clever variation on the theme of Les Diaboliques.

Danielle Darrieux stands pretty well alone in this film, with little in the way of support from her male co-stars.  Once Jean Servais is unceremoniously ejected from the proceedings it is left to the congenitally bland Michel Auclair to partner Darrieux on her dark journey into night, and he might just as well have taken the day off for all the impact he makes.  Jacqueline Danno - a successful singer of the period - makes a far greater impression, although she only appears in a few scenes (as a haunting vision of the sly, predatory female) and has practically no dialogue.  Apparently not put off by the B-movie subject matter and a fairly mediocre script, Darrieux turns in one of her more nuanced and intriguing performances - her ambiguous portrayal (we can never be sure if her character is as innocent as she pretends) is what makes the film so disturbing and compelling. 

It is a shame that the inexperienced Périer (this was only his second feature) occasionally undermines his material and his lead actress with his stylistic excesses, a case in point being a lunatic dream sequence near the end of the film which too obviously references the one in Vertigo.  Despite its misjudged directorial indulgences and a totally unnecessary coda, Meurtre en 45 makes for an entertaining thriller.  So long as you're not expecting another Clouzot masterpiece it rewards the effort you put into watching it, although you can't help wishing that there was a DVD option to switch off the infarctus-causing cacophony that masquerades as a film score.

Film Synopsis

With songs composed by her husband Maurice, Ève Faugères has become a hugely successful singer.  Ève's career may be on the up but her marriage is heading for the rocks.  Having grown contemptuous of her brutish and insensitive husband she has begun an affair with her pianist, Jean Le Prat.  If only Maurice would conveniently die Ève would be free to start a new life with the man she truly loves.  Fate is only too kind to grant her her wish.  After Maurice is killed in a car accident, Éve is called upon to identify her husband's body, but she can barely bring herself to look at the mangled remains.  Maurice's death is too convenient for Éve's liking and immediately she begins to suspect foul play.

It isn't long before Éve has convinced herself that Jean arranged the accident so that she could be free to marry him.  In fact Jean is innocent of the crime and is just as certain that Éve is the murderer.  No sooner have the lovers persuaded each other that Maurice Faugères's death was merely an accident than events take an unexpected and sinister turn.  On a short-playing record Éve listens in disbelief to a message from her husband informing her that he is still very much alive.  It seems that Maurice anticipated his murder and now intends driving his wife insane.  Wherever Éve goes, she feels Maurice's presence and slowly she begins to lose her grip on reality, just as her persecutor intended...