Now available from Radiance
This 3-film set of Alain Corneau’s work starring some of France’s biggest acting names.
Police Python 357 (1976)
From director Corneau and writers Daniel Boulanger and Corneau, based on the novel The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, Police Python 357 follows a police officer who finds himself involved in a murder when his lover is found death. This one is possibly the weakest of the three films presented here but still better than a lot of other thrillers out there. Corneau brings this story with its twists and turns to the screen in a manner that is calculated, almost cold, showing the situation and those involved while seemingly not guiding the story by letting the cast do their work. And do their work they achieve. Lead actor Yves Montant is fantastic as usual and Simone Signoret is sublime in her interpretation here. A few more familiar faces show up here and there in this movie. The cast here is the best part of the film.
Série noire (1979)
This Corneau film is one that while the story works and the film itself works, there is an ick factor to it. Here the film follows a traveling salesman as he wants to change his life. While selling door to door, he meets a young girl who is offered to him as payment, of course, he is uncomfortable with this for a bit and wants to save this girl. And here is the ick about it which may have been culturally ok in late 1970s France but is no longer so: The lead actress playing this girl, Mona, is Marie Trintignant who is fantastic here, but also is a minor with a whole lot of nude scenes. So, viewer beware. That aside, the film has a good cast, good writing by Georges Perec and Corneau, based on Jim Thompson’s novel A Hell of a Woman.
Choice of Arms (aka Le choix des armes) (1981)
This one is the most modern of the three and the strongest, telling the story of a former crook who must come out of retirement when a group of younger crooks look to him for help following their break out of prison. The story here works great, has some surprises in store for everyone, and an absolutely fantastic cast which includes none other than Catherine Deneuve who is amazing as usual and who doesn’t get nearly enough screen time, seriously she’s la grande dame of French cinema for a reason. Joining her are Yves Montant who is great as usual and a young Gerard Depardieu who is a fantastic actor (and hopefully not a terrible human yet). The cast here has supporting actors who are also talented as can be with a few familiar faces in the bunch for those who watch French films a lot. The writing by Corneau and Michel Grisolia is on point and gives this cast something great to work with.
This set is one that shows three films that are incredibly well crafted with uneven results in terms of the interest in the stories. The quality of the set is quite high with new digital transfer and each film getting its own disc to allow for more extras. And extras are there in plentitude. There is so much on there that one may be tempted to skip some, but all are of interest. Of course, some are more interesting than the others with the top of the bunch being the archival interviews with Deneuve and Montant on set in 1981, the limited-edition booklet included in the set, a bunch of behind-the-scenes footage for Choice of Arms, archival interviews from 1976 for Police Python 357, and more recent (as in 2002) interviews with Corneau and Marie Trintignant (who passed away in 2003). There is more, but these are the first ones to check out when getting the set.