Les Suspects (1957)
Directed by Jean Dréville

Film Review

With the Algerian War in full throttle, France's security services needed some positive publicity, and this is presumably why they were so willing to lend their support to this flagrant piece of propaganda masquerading as a thriller.  Les Suspects falls somewhat awkwardly between two stools - it is neither a documentary nor is it an effective drama.  All that it manages to be is a flagrant promotional piece for the DST (direction de la surveillance du territoire), although it could (if it fell into the wrong hands) conceivably be used as an instrument of torture.  You'd be forgiven for thinking that Jean Dréville's attention was elsewhere when he was directing this film, either that or his heart wasn't in it.  Compared with the director's previous documentary-style drama, La Bataille de l'eau lourde (1948), this one is pretty dreary.

There is scarcely a scene in the film which looks as if a director went anywhere near it.  The actors are assembled in front of the camera, looking lost for most of the time, wearily mouthing reams of insipid dialogue like robots running on batteries that badly need re-charging.  There's probably a plot here somewhere, but by the time you've cottoned on to it you will most probably have fallen asleep or jumped off the nearest high rise building.  Just what crime did Charles Vanel and Anne Vernon commit to end up being subjected to this kind of torture?  Trimmed by about an hour, Les Suspects might have offered some interesting insights into the DST's activities, but in its full two-hour long version it's only suitable as a last resort soporific for incurable insomniacs.

Film Synopsis

In France, a mysterious network of political agitators are organising a campaign of terror, which they announce over the airwaves through a series of clandestine radio broadcasts.  The French intelligence agency, the DST, is taking the threats seriously and two of its best men, Superintendent Perrache and Inspector Duchamp, are busy trying to locate the plotters before they can instigate their Day of Blood.  When another DST agent, Vignon, is taken prisoner by the gang's leader his wife becomes concerned for his safety.  Duchamp's determined investigation leads him to arrest a pair of refugees who have been passing on messages to the agitators at a small cinema.  This leads Perrache to discover that the gang is led by Kurt Topfer, who is already known to the DST as a potential threat.  It is then that the plotters make their demand: Vignon will be released unharmed only if Topfer's brother Hans, a war prisoner being detained in Algeria, is set free.  A plan to intercept the aeroplane with Vignon on board goes badly wrong, and the plane crashes in the desert...