Quite hard to find, "le Mannequin Assassiné" must be seen because it's produced by the belgian Robert Lussac who plays intelligently the commissionner Aimé Malaise, a tall strong bearded smoking pipe and so determined to find out who stabbed a dummy and why do this weird act, "the greatest crime in the world" as Steeman writes. "Le Mannequin Assassiné" was shot after the successes of Lacombes and Clouzot adaptations from Steeman. But the screenwriter Georges Chaperot and dialoguist Pierre Lestringuez who wrote LMA were not big names in movie business, in fact they just wrote a few minor movies each. And that's the main weakness in this rarely seen Steeman adaptation : it misses all the visual scenes (the crazy carrying the dummy like "Saint André is walking", this scene being chosen for the cover of the 1949 book cover) and original strong dialogues. Not only did they miss the good parts and rewrite clumsily the story, but they added Malaise's wife, character completely useless and ridiculous boozing with villagers. Yes, Steeman's book deserved a better adaptation closer to the book. The main casting is fine with Blanchette Brunoy, Gilbert Gil, Blanchette Brunoy and the truculent Julien Carette, André Gabriello and Caussimon as the crazy.
Strange list of casting on imdb, the first name is an obscure character while the main character commissionner Malaise is ninth.
Strange list of casting on imdb, the first name is an obscure character while the main character commissionner Malaise is ninth.