Mort d’un pourri (1977) - film review

When his friend, Philippe Dubaye, murders a business partner, Xavier Maréchal attempts to provide him with an alibi.  Dubaye reveals that that he also stole a notebook containing the names of numerous corrupt politicians whom the murdered man had been blackmailing.   As he attempts to recover the notebook, Maréchal finds that he has become the target of an unknown enemy.  When Dubaye is killed, Maréchal realises that his own life is in peril.  Unable to trust anyone – not even the police – it is left to him alone to expose the killer, before he himself is killed…

With its exceptional production values (not least of which is its high-calibre cast), Mort d’un pourri is the definitive 1970s policier.  Well-paced, well-written and filmed with panache, this is a rare example of a French crime thriller which can rightly be termed a work of art (falling just short of the genius shown by Jean-Pierre Melville in his thrillers).  At the height of his powers and popularity, Alain Delon turns in one of his best performances (for which he was nominated for a César in 1978).  Surprisingly, in this film Delon plays neither a gangster nor a cop (the roles with which he is best associated), but a rather amiable business man who sees himself as a moral crusader, and who has (in typically Delon-esque fashion) an extraordinary capacity to survive.

Starring alongside Delon are such familiar faces as Maurice Ronet, Stéphane Audran, Ornella Muti, Michel Aumont, Julien Guiomar and the legendary German actor Klaus Kinski.   Georges Lautner directed the film, with a script from Michel Audiard, the same team which brought us the popular spoof policier Les Tontons flingueurs (1963).   The cinematography is provided courtesy of Henri Decaë, one of the most sought-after directors of photography in France at the time (beloved by both the New Wave and traditional directors).   This ensemble of talent almost guarantees a great film, and the end product can hardly be termed a disappointment.  This is nothing less than two hours of suspense-filled drama, with exquisite performances (from actors who are capable of showing us the meaning of fear and pain), and the occasional death-defying stunt thrown in for good measure.

The film’s subject is typical of its time.  By the mid 1970s, the French thriller genre (in both novels and films) had moved away from the traditional gangster format and was introducing a new enemy: a corrupt system of administration.   Whereas the villains of the past had been drugs barons, pimps or jewel thieves, they were now crooked policemen, greedy businessmen or self-seeking politicians, often embroiled together in some sinister global conspiracy.  This new sub-genre, the néo-polar, echoed a series of prolific scandals which were rocking France at the time, and so it was not surprising that the genre became enormously successful between the late 1970s and the early 1980s.   “Trust no one”, one of the phrases used repeatedly in Mort d’un pourri, is particularly appropriate in the chilling world of néo-polar paranoia, a world which is not too far removed from our own...

© James Travers 2003

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