Cran d'arrêt (1970)
Directed by Yves Boisset

Film Review

Director Yves Boisset followed up his debut feature Coplan sauve sa peau (1968) with a similarly routine thriller, this one based on a novel by Giorgio Scerbanenco.  Cran d'arrêt feels pretty tame compared with Boisset's gritty thrillers of the 1970s, most notably Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff (1977), although the film's main failing lies not in its mise-en-scène but in its totally implausible narrative, which places an enormous strain on the spectator's credulity.  Despite a reasonably talented cast, with the habitually dour Bruno Cremer taking the lead in what feels like a dry run for his best-known role, that of Inspector Maigret, none of the characters rings true, and it is hard to take seriously a film that relies so heavily on the most ridiculous of plot contrivances.  The character depth and psychological realism of Scerbanenco's novel are singularly lacking in this overly cautious adaptation.

So unconvincing is the plot that there are moments when Cran d'arrêt feels more like a comedy than a straight thriller.  There is a section in the middle that seems to embark on a weird parody of the Italian giallo, with a young woman deliberately putting herself in harm's way in a desperate, and not remotely well-thought-out, bid to trap the man who killed her sister.  This surprising detour provides a rich vein of humour which Boisset mines pretty exhaustively.  In his defence, Boisset asserted that his creativity was too aggressively restrained by his producer, and this might explain why the film repeatedly teeters on the edge of being daring but never quite makes it.  A botched denouement is only just salvaged by an extremely well choreographed action sequence including a car chase which compares well with anything to be found in American thrillers of this era.  Overall, Cran d'arrêt entertains in spite of (or maybe because of) its obvious shortcomings but, lacking conviction and a credible plot, it falls short of what we expect from Boisset in the light of his subsequent achievements.

Film Synopsis

Dr Lucas Lamberti has just left prison after serving a three year stretch for killing one of his patients.  An old friend, Dr Carrua, persuades him to take a friendly interest in his son, David, who has recently become an alcoholic depressive.  After attempting suicide, David confides in Lucas the reason for his depression.  He blames himself for the death of a young woman named Alberta with whom he once had a brief liaison.  David is convinced that Alberta would still be alive if he hadn't abandoned her.  In the dead woman's handbag Lucas discovers a roll of photographic film. It appears that shortly before her death Alberta posed for a sadistic photographer, a man with long blond hair.  Lucas decides that the best way to help David is to find the man who is to blame for Alberta's death and see that he is brought to justice.  To that end, he is willing to use Alberta's sister as bait...