User Reviews

Planning to view one of the longer French titles I've got in the pile for ICM's Viewing Challenge,I had to quickly change plans when the US Film Noir Inferno (1953) (also reviewed) DVD sold on eBay! Finding that I had two cuts of this movie, I decided to find out how lustful the night of the original French cut is.

Note:I will be watching/reviewing the US Cut soon.

View on the film:

Lusting for 72 minutes, co-writer/(with Guy Fanelli ) director Jose Benazeraf & cinematographer Edmond Richard take the Film Noir of early 50's French cinema, and twist it into the French New Wave (FNW) (a movement about to past its peak after Truffaut's great The Soft Skin unexpectedly failed at the box office in 1964.)Not playing the credits or Chet Baker's wonderful improvised Jazz score until 15 minutes in, Benazeraf loads up a enticingly brittle, experimental atmosphere, tracking the rival gang battles with stylish long-lens shots which keeps critical actions, (a kidnapping phone call, shoot-outs) obscured in the foreground, whilst examining the mundane events such as cards that the henchmen play to pass the time. Skirting towards what was to come with Italian Crime by adding a dash of naked women and a delightful catfight, Benazeraf gives each of them a FNW twist, via via viewing a striptease from a side mirror in a pub, and fluidly darting the camera across the faces of the ladies tangled in the fight.

Bringing Anne-Marie Devillers novel into daylight, the adaptation by Benazeraf and Fanelli have the rival gang fight spill out in short,sharp,shocks across the streets,but builds up the majority of the Film Noir thrills by focusing on the tangled state of hostage Nora, who along with clawing into a Femme Fatale rivalry with fellow dame Wanda, gets left by the road side as the guys are drawn into the darkness of their gang war. Slammed into a car as a hostage, sexy Yvonne Monlaur gives a excellent turn as Nora, whose alluring, subtle facial expressions captures Nora's fears during the night of lust.