Sophie et le crime (1955)
Directed by Pierre Gaspard-Huit

Film Review

Sophie et le crime was an early offering from director Pierre Gaspard-Huit, a half-baked crime mystery that singularly fails to leave a lasting impression, despite an impressive cast headed by the superlative Peter van Eyck.  Adapted from a novel by Cécil Saint-Laurent, the film could, in better hands, have ended up as a compelling psycho-thriller, but in Gaspard-Huit's woolly mittens it ends up as drearily prosaic whodunit, which is more Nancy Drew than Psycho.  You have to be pretty dim not to have identified the real killer within thirty minutes, and this makes the film's torturously slow pace to the final reveal almost unbearable.  If Gaspard-Huit hadn't at least partly redeemed himself with his subsequent films Christine (1958) and Le Capitaine Fracasse (1961) he would doubtless deserve his place in obscurity if this lumbering bore-a-thon is anything to go by.

On a more positive note, Marina Vlady and Peter Van Eyck are both admirably well-suited for their respective roles.  Vlady's girlish appearance and her obvious innocence makes her an obvious choice for the part of the quixotic investigative journalist whose trusting nature (or is it crass, bloody-minded stupidity?) leads her into more than one potentially lethal lion's den.  If Vlady's character lacks depth and conviction and merely appears like an empty-headed idiot who deserves all she gets, this is more the fault of the mediocre screenplay than any lack of ability on the part of the actress, who does all she can to make her titular heroine believable.

Van Eyck was an actor who never consciously let a bad script get in the way of a great performance, and even in a film as pedestrian as this he delivers the goods with one of his more chilling screen portrayals (helped by some suitably moody lighting and camerawork).  Van Eyck's compelling presence, indescribably sinister in a few scenes, is just about all that Sophie et le crime has going for it (it's worth mentioning there's also a nice turn from Pierre Dux as a police superintendent of the iron fist in a  velvet glove variety) - although his talent for playing ice-cold villainy would be put to much better use in Hammer's The Snorkel (1958).

Film Synopsis

Sophie Brulard is a feisty young Parisian who is keen to make her mark as a journalist on the gossip magazine she works for, Tel Quel.  One evening, she meets a good-looking young man and, without knowing his name, invites him back to her lodgings.  They take their leave after a chaste kiss, but as the disappointed Don Juan descends the staircase another man runs past him in a state of panic.  Not long afterwards it is discovered that the woman inhabiting the flat beneath Sophie's has been stabbed to death. The likely culprit is her husband, Franck Richter, who has gone into hiding.  Convinced of Franck's innocence, Sophie tracks him down and assures him that she will do her best to uncover the real murderer and bring him to justice.

Franck confides in Sophie the events of the night that preceded his wife's killing and it seems that his hard-up brother-in-law Toni is obviously the killer.  He even threatened Franck in a bar with a knife, not long before the murder took place!  Questioned by police superintendent Moret, Sophie points the finger of blame in Toni's direction, but when the police fail to arrest him through lack of evidence she decides to take matters into her own hands, by confronting Toni herself and persuading him to confess.  Sophie has no idea of the danger she is getting herself into and unless she is careful she is likely to end up as the killer's second victim...