Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche (1964)

Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche is a French thriller film first released in 1964, directed by Claude Chabrol.  The film stars Roger Hanin, Maria Mauban, Daniela Bianchi and Roger Dumas.  It has also been released under the title: Code Name: Tiger.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Baskine, the Turkish ambassador, arrives in Paris to sign an important trade agreement, allowing Turkey to buy a sophisticated new war plane from France.  Immediately, he is the target of an unknown assassin and special agent Louis Rapière (a.k.a. ‘The Tiger’) is assigned to protect him.  During a failed assassination attempt at the opera, the ambassador’s daughter Mehlica is kidnapped.  Discovering that the enemy is in truth the ambassador’s own secretary, Koubassi, the Tiger attempts to rescue Mehlica…

Although it is now largely (and justifiably) overlooked by most film enthusiasts, Le Tigre aime la chair fraiche occupies an important place in Claude Chabrol’s film-making career.  After a promising debut in the late 1950s, in which he effectively spearheaded the French New Wave, Chabrol soon ran into difficulties when his films failed to attract audiences.  With the spectacular failure of L’Oeil du malin and Landru in 1962, he lost the confidence of his producers and his career as a director could well have ended there and then if it were not for an offer from Gaumont to make a spy film.

Chabrol took up the offer willingly and was tasked with making a film in the series of “Gorilla” spy films, following La Valse du gorille (1959) and Le Gorille a mordu l’archevêque (1962), with Roger Hanin reprising his role as the agent known as “The Gorilla”.   When the rights to the Gorilla series were suddenly withdrawn, Chabrol was still keen to make a film in the same style – as was Hanin, who decided to write a script under an assumed name (Antoine Flachot).  The resulting film, Le Tigre aime la chair fraîche allowed Hanin to continue playing the kind of role he enjoyed most – a sophisticated, slightly masochistic action hero, effectively a Gallic version of James Bond.

Although now appearing very dated and unsophisticated, this film and its sequel Le Tigre se parfume à la dynamite were very much in tune with the mood of the time.  They proved to be a box office success – allowing Chabrol to win back the confidence of his producers and thereby secure his future as a mainstream filmmaker.

© James Travers 2003

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