Tendre poulet (1978) - film review

A near-fatal collision between a car and a motorcycle brings about the happy reunion of Lise Tanquerelle, a busy career woman, and Antoine Lemercier, a professor of Greek at the Sorbonne.  Although it has been many years since they last saw each other, in the halcyon summer of their college days, Lise and Antoine still have fond feelings for one another.  Unfortunately, Antoine loathes the police with the passion of a red-blooded anarchist and Lise isn’t sure how to break the news to him that she is a police commissioner.  Before she can resolve this dilemma, Lise is drawn into an investigation into the brutal killing of a former minister...

The inspired pairing of Annie Girardot and Philippe Noiret, two of the most familiar French actors of the 1970s, makes Tendre poulet one of director Philippe de Broca’s more entertaining and memorable films.  Michel Audiard’s dialogue isn’t perhaps as sharp and as witty as in his earlier films, but his script strikes an appropriate balance between comedy and hard-edged thriller.  The film feels like a precursor to the popular comedy policiers of the 1980s, exemplified by the Ripoux films which Noiret would subsequently star in (partnered not with Girardot, alas, but Thierry Lhermitte).

This film marked something of a transition for Annie Girardot who, by the late 1970s, had become better known for her comedic performances, although she had also appeared in many straight dramas, including Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers (1960).  In the following decade, Girardot would gravitate to more serious roles, playing strong-minded women that reflected the growing feminist trend in French cinema and society in general – most notably in José Giovanni’s impressive crime drama Une robe noire pour un tueur (1980).

Tendre poulet was based on a novel entitled Le frelon, by Claude Olivier and Jean-Paul Rouland.  This same novel provided the inspiration for an American TV film and subsequent television series, Dear Detective, broadcast in 1979.  Annie Girardot and Philippe Noiret would be reunited for a direct sequel to this film, On a volé la cuisse de Jupiter (1980), again directed by Philippe de Broca.

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