Police Python 357 (1976) - film review

Orléans police inspector Marc Ferrot leads a focused, solitary existence.  With no family and few friends, he devotes himself to his work and his interest in firearms.  One night, whilst snaring a petty criminal, he encounters a woman, Sylvia, for whom he develops an immediate fascination.   Ferrot takes Sylvia as his lover, not realising that she is also having an affair with his immediate superior, Commissaire Ganay.  When he learns that Sylvia is deceiving him, Ganay kills her in a moment of passion.  Following the advice of his paralysed wife, Ganay takes action to cover his tracks, not realising that in doing so he is implicating a colleague.  As Ferrot investigates Sylvia’s murder he is surprised to find that all of the clues point to him being the murderer...

Police Python 357 is the film that established Alain Corneau as one of France’s most promising young directors in the mid-1970s.  He had previously made just one film, France société anonyme (1974), which had also been well-received by the critics.  For French cinema, the 1970s was primarily the decade of the policier, the Gallic variation on the crime thriller.  This developed out of the film noir style polars of the previous two decades and drew inspiration from its equivalent in American cinema.  In the 1970s and early ’80s Alain Corneau made three very memorable films in this genre, of which Police Python 357 is generally regarded as the best.  It is a slick, suspenseful thriller which boasts a sophisticated script, imaginative direction, excellent cinematography and superlative performances from its three lead actors.  

In contrast to most policiers, which tend to be set in Paris, this one is located in Orléans, the city where Corniaud grew up as a child.  The setting, with its haphazard mix of the old and the modern, provides an appropriate backdrop for a tale in which order breaks down and the lives of two seemingly unimpeachable police officers unravel in the most chaotic manner, losing any meaningful point of reference.   Reality seems to disintegrate and we find ourselves in what feels like an existentialist nightmare world of the imagination, in which is played out a dark game of survival, where all the moves appear to be made by some unseen malignant force.  The film has something of the essence of the neo-polar, except that here the motivating evil is not some nebulous political or corporate entity but the darker aspects of the characters themselves.  In case you are wondering, the film gets its enigmatic title from the Colt Python 357, a powerful firearm that was standard issue to the American police.

Police Python 357’s main attraction is Yves Montand, who gives one of his most compelling performances.  Here, partnered with another great actor, François Périer, he plays a tough, morally ambiguous cop who is poles apart from his other popular persona, that of the amiable chansonnier.  Montand appears in the film with his real-life wife, Simone Signoret, with whom he had co-starred in a number of earlier films, most notably Costa-Gravras’ L’Aveu (1970) and Raymond Rouleau’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Les Sorcières de Salem (1957).   In a restrained yet highly effective performance, Signoret provides the film with is emotional centre, giving a poignant counterpoint to the sterile machismo that revolves around it, propelling the male protagonists to their doom, or their salvation, in true film noir fashion.

© James Travers 2008


Whilst he subsequently proved himself to be a master at several genres, Alain Corneau established himself with a series of policiers, three of which top-billed Yves Montand.  Although you could just about slide a centime between them, Police Python 357 is a tad superior to one of the other Montand vehicles Choice of Arms (1981).  It has to be said that the plot owes something to The Big Clock, with a murderer persuading someone to investigate the crime whilst ensuring that the investigator winds up as the chief suspect.  The twist here is that the murderer is a senior cop (François Périer) who shares a mistress with one of his detectives (Montand), although initially neither of them is aware of this fact.  

Having murdered his mistress in the heat of the moment and, for good measure, learned of Montand’s involvement, Périer assigns the case to Ferrot (Montand) whilst compiling/planting evidence that will convict him.  The third great actor is Madame Montand herself, the great Simone Signoret, approaching the end of an illustrious career and playing little more than a cameo as Périer’s bedridden wife. 

What we have here is what we might describe as cat-and-mouse for grown-ups, with Montand pulling out all the stops - including throwing acid into his own face to disguise his appearance - to stay one (or at least half) a step ahead of Périer.  When I met Corneau, I asked him whose idea it had been to have Montand wear the same sports jacket that Clint Eastwood had worn in Dirty Harry and he said, with a grin, that it had been his.  Though it’s a bonus for the cognoscenti it’s a bonus that this standout entry doesn’t need.  Superb.

© Leon Nock (London, England) 2010 

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Singer Yves Montand proved he is also a great actor in the suspense genre. A very well made, quite unusual and interesting French movie.
Aaron W (Vienne Autriche) 

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