Sans Mobile Apparent
Director: Philippe Labro
Year: 1971
Rating: 8.0
Aka – Without Apparent Motive
The 87th Precinct books from Ed McBain are probably
the best series of police procedural books written. None of them though have
really made it to the screen in a memorable way. The first three were low
budget gritty films from the early 1960s - Cop Hater, The Pusher, The Mugger
- and then there were the three TV movies made in the 1990s - Lightning,
Ice and Heatwave. In between those were Fuzz with Burt Reynolds and Raquel
Welch that was enjoyable but mainly played for laughs and Blood Relatives
with Donald Sutherland and directed by Claude Chabrol which is solid but
with no splash. But it is another Frenchman, not nearly as well-known as
Chabrol, who directs the best 87th Precinct film- a stylish, moody, tension
filled film based on McBain's Ten Plus One. This is Philippe Labro who propels
this forward with short punchy scenes or slow static lyrical ones accompanied
with a score by Ennio Morricone. It is beautiful filmmaking - why have I
never heard of this guy before - with great location shooting in Nice, suspenseful
pacing and editing so good that I wanted to applaud at times.
He has a good cast to work with - Jean-Louis
Trintignant as Carella with more sex appeal then the books ever gave him (he
is a bachelor in this one). A lovely trio of actresses - Dominique Sanda (one
pointless topless scene but this is a French film), Laura Antonelli (who
surprisingly doesn't have a topless scene) and Stéphane Audran who
had been married to Trintignant and was married to Chabrol at the time. The
rest of the cast was unfamiliar to me other than Erich Segal who wrote Love
Story. A very creepy looking guy - hard to imagine he wrote that hugely popular
romance.
Nice is a beautiful place to be, situated
on the Rivera and drenched by the sun and small sidewalk cafes everywhere.
Until a sniper starts killing people with a perfect shot to the forehead.
Carella and his crew get the case. The first victim is a well-off businessman
with a solemn wife and a lovely step-daughter Sandra (Dominique). Carella
is making no headway and then another gentleman is shot as he is about to
take a dive into a pool. Others are to follow and the city starts panicking
and the higher ups are pressuring Carella to solve it quickly. But he can
find no connection among the victims. When he does it is a perverse tale.
Sniper movies always get to me - especially the seeming random ones - no one
is safe - one minute you are alive, the next on the ground leaking your life
out. The killer is kept hidden for most of the film. The acting is terrific
from everyone - Sanda just looks gorgeous and opaque, Antonelli takes on a
very quiet recessive role but when her eyes begin to be terrified it is perfect
and Audran is a sexy redhead keeping secrets. Her scene with Carella in the
police car as he questions her is a masterclass in silence and editing. It
is almost needless to say that Trintignant is great - all business, to the
point, taking command but when he is close to Sanda the sexual tension can
be felt in Paris. I have to find more films from this director.
