Bonnes à tuer (1954)
Directed by Henri Decoin

Film Review

Henri Decoin directed this suspenseful psychological thriller, his eighth collaboration with his former wife, the actress Danielle Darrieux.  With some sinister film noir style photography and very effective use of flashbacks, Bonnes à tuer compares very well with some of Hitchcock's better suspense thrillers and it certainly ranks as one of Decoin's most compelling and stylish works.  Four glamorous women and a deliciously villainous Michel Auclair have no difficulty holding our attention, thanks to a well-crafted script with an ingenious plot (a novel twist on the whodunit idea, where the identity of the murder victim is unknown). The film was based on a successful novel “Follow as the Night” by the distinguished American thriller writer Pat Mac Gerr.

Film Synopsis

Crowds of on-lookers on Paris's most famous thoroughfare, the Champs-Elysées, gather around the crushed body of a man who has just plunged to his death from a great height. Going back a few days, a journalist named Larry Roques is taking up residence in his new penthouse apartment overlooking the French capital.  For all his humble origins, a combination of good fortune, opportunism and downright dishonesty have allowed Larry to become a very wealthy man.  To celebrate his success, and his forthcoming marriage to the heiress Cécile Germain-Thomas, he invites the four women in his life to an evening dinner party at his new apartment.  His first wife Constance accepts the invitation, in spite of the fact that she loathes his bad character.  His second wife Véra also turns up, but with a terrible presentiment that the evening will turn out badly.  She is suing Larry for divorce and it would be convenient if she were to meet with an accident.  Naturally, Cécile will be there, along with Larry's former mistress, Maggy.  Véra's hunch is indeed correct. Larry is intending to murder one of the four women.  But which one - and why…?