En légitime défense (1958)
Directed by André Berthomieu

Film Review

Far better known for his comedies (including some of the musical variety), director André Berthomieu shows a surprising flair for suspense thriller in this involving, well-paced French film noir, which is all the better for being scripted by Frédéric Dard, one of France's top crime writers.  By the late 1950s, noir-style thrillers or polars (as they were known in France) had become a mainstay of French cinema, visibly influenced by their somewhat grittier American counterparts.  En légitime défense starts out as a fairly tame entry in the genre, an unintended crime leading predictably into a courtroom drama which proceeds at a snail's pace before it takes a very unexpected turn.  Thereafter, things head down a far murkier and much less pedestrian passage, concluding with a finale that is both shockingly sadistic and visually stunning, far more gratifying than the usual dumb shoot-out that concludes most films of this kind.

En légitime défense may be a minor entry in a somewhat over-subscribed genre - it has none of the stylistic brilliance or sustained dramatic power of Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) or Le Deuxième souffle (1966) - but it is an entertaining second leaguer, helped along by a perfectly acceptable cast and a well-honed script with a few appealing twists and turns.  As a sympathetic police inspector, Bernard Blier shows an unusually humane departure from the hard-boiled, seemingly infallible 'tecs (of the Lino Ventura variety) that predominated in the French policier, perfectly matched against the cool but deadly Pierre Mondy as the main villain of the piece.  Even though they are playing pretty flagrant archetypes, Blier and Mondy make their characters interesting and totally believable, chillingly so in the case of Mondy.

Before he became better known as a singer, Philippe Nicaud first found his feet as an actor, and it is his talent for playing the wide-eyed innocent with a morbid fear of getting his head smashed in that is put to good use in this film.  Other names that will be familiar to French film aficionados are Jean Lefebvre and Robert Dalban, comedy stalwarts who show that they are just as at home in more 'serious' fare of this kind - Dalban is positively terrifying, with not so much as a whiff of his customary amiability.  Providing some welcome relief from all this overworked male machismo is a supremely attractive Maria Mauban, who gets to shine in a slick and saucy cabaret number that would liven up anyone's evening in Pigalle.  How Mauban ended up as Mrs Louis de Funès in Le Gendarme et les Extra-terrestres (1978) is a mystery that not even Frédéric Dard would be able to unravel.

Film Synopsis

Pierre Lambert is the owner of a fashionable bar, À l'Ami Pierrot, situated in the trendy heart of Pigalle, Paris.  His girlfriend, Dora, is a singer at the Nouvelle Éve cabaret nearby.  To keep on good terms with the local gangsters, Pierre has to pay protection money to a racketeer named Albert.  One evening, Petit Bob, one of Albert's henchmen, pays Pierre a visit and demands more money, on account of the fact that the bar is doing good business.  Pierre refuses to pay up and decides not to involve his friend Martinet, a police inspector whose life he saved during the war.  He soon comes to regret these decisions, since, the next day, Albert shows up in his bar, accompanied by his heavies.  On impulse, Pierre takes a gun from the till and the next thing he knows Albert is lying dead at his feet.  Pierre's first instinct is to run, but Martinet persuades him he must stand trial and convince a court that he acted in self-defence.  Thanks to testimony supplied by Petit Bob, the unlikeliest of allies, Pierre is acquitted and can resume his former, trouble-free life.  Then his nightmare begins...