User's Reviews
Agreeable dose of Melville-lite.
Excellent, very entertaining cat-and-mouse thriller, as an avenging husband (the incomparable Lino Ventura) tries to kill a witness to a murder. In its spare monochrome Decae photography, cool jazz soundtrack, nocturnal settings, focus on elaborate plot mechanics, and privileging of an unlovely outsider, the film is reminiscent of Melville. The 'villain' is only responding to a vicious circle of transgression and injustice, and his plight becomes an allegory for the lonely outsider locked out of a conformist society. The rigorous purity of Melville's aesthetic is softened by romance and comedy, but these only intensify the sense of impending tragedy.
*
This is really a minor work,but which retains a certain passé charm.The main asset of the movie is Henri Decae's cinematography ,as dazzling as usual.All the night scenes are impressive,the taxis gathering for the chase,the zoological garden with its nocturnal birds ,watching the fighting between the two men.
The screenplay is somewhat disappointing,coming for two writers of Boileau-Narcejac calibre(Vertigo,les diaboliques).There are few surprises,unexpected twists,the Boileau-Narcejac trademarks .The very first scene shows Hitchcock's influence ("shadow of a doubt").Lino Ventura is cast against type because he rarely plays the villains.
Perhaps which is to Molinaro's credit is his depiction of the taxi drivers.From their breakfast at dawn in the bistros where they enjoy coffee and croissants to the rooms where the operators send their messages to the drivers,these are charming vignettes of old Paris at the beginning of general De Gaulle mandate.
Edouard Molinaro's best film remains "la mort de Belle"(1963).His career is essentially commercial,the likes of "la cage aux folles" and "l'emmerdeur" (which was to become Billy Wilder's "buddy buddy").
*
Author: msroz from United States
26 August 2014"Witness in the City" is a true film noir, no question about it, and it's an excellent noir at that, a movie that marries its themes with the artistic images.
The plot begins with the murder of a woman (Lino Ventura's wife) and the subsequent freeing of the killer (Jacques Berthier) because of insufficient evidence, but the judge makes clear his belief in Berthier's guilt. Ventura takes his revenge on Berthier in a well-planned crime, but unexpectedly he is seen by a cab driver (Franco Fabrizi) whom Berthier had called, unknown to Ventura when he committed the crime. Ventura then begins to track this witness in the city, with a deadly aim. But not being a killer by nature, he doesn't commit to this second crime, which is of an innocent man, so easily.
His own conscience is one of the many obstacles he encounters. Meanwhile the movie lets us in on the lives of Fabrizi, who is romancing a telephone operator (Sandra Milo), and the other taxi drivers. Their innocent playfulness contrasts starkly with the driven nature of Ventura and his tracking of Fabrizi. Much of this action is at night. Eventually, when Ventura's identity and plans become known, he becomes the one that is pursued. And what a pursuit that is, in magnificent night photography through the lamppost-lit streets of Paris.
Henri Decae deserves a special note of mention. Accompanying the movie is a jazz score, like that of "Elevator to the Gallows", done by the top professionals then in Paris, including Kenny Clarke, Kenny Dorham, Duke Jordan and Barney Wilen.
Much of Ventura's performance is wordless. He imbues his character with conflict and desperation. He becomes a wounded animal, but not one that's a pathological cold-blooded killer. The taxi drivers become hunters in pursuit of him, subject to the deadly and wily murderer making a desperate attempt to escape capture. His instinct for survival parries their instinct to protect their own. Instead of a jungle, we have city streets at night in which automobiles become weapons.
A tragedy is played out in which one evil leads to another evil. Ventura's wife's unfaithfulness was the seed followed by Berthier's extreme measure to rid himself of her by taking her life. Little did he realize that Ventura's love for her would entail avenging an unfaithful wife. The failure of the justice system plays a role in what is to transpire. From this love and hatred of Berthier springs another murder, that of Berthier, but the chain doesn't stop there.
*
Author: kinsayder from United Kingdom
28 December 2015
A man (Lino Ventura) commits a murder, carefully staging it like a suicide. But there's a witness: a taxi driver who saw him leaving the scene of the crime. The loose end has to be tied up, and during the next 24 hours the killer stalks his victim through the streets of Paris, waiting for an opportunity to strike...
This is my favourite Molinaro film. It has stuck in my memory since I first saw it about 20 years ago, largely due to the atmospheric night time Paris location work and Ventura's powerful, almost silent performance. He plays a villain here, but not an entirely unsympathetic one. The film cleverly opens with a sort of prologue in which we're shown that the man he kills murdered Ventura's wife and got away with it. This fact, along with the actor's natural charisma, gives us an instinctive sympathy for Ventura's predicament, even while he's hunting down an innocent man.
The climactic chase involving a fleet of taxi cabs is well staged, giving the impression of an entire city uniting to destroy an unwanted presence in its midst. It ends, appropriately enough, amongst caged birds of prey.
*
This is an unusual French film from 1959, in that the wondrous Lino Ventura plays the bad guy and the 'Radio Taxi' outfit seem to play the police. Whilst this is a French homage to the US film noir, it still is very much its own with plenty of cafe stops, great night shots of Paris and perhaps unwisely and emphasis on humour rather than hard edged action, although there is some of that too. Always engaging, we see the immaculately organised Ventura do the dirty and then incredulously see him struggle to tie up one unfortunate loose end. I didn't feel that Ventura was comfortable as the baddie and he was not as convincing as he should have been so perhaps this is why his failings are almost treated as jokes. Uneven but certainly has some great moments and if the zoo scenes, at the end,don't quite work as well as they should, the absolute finale is a cracker.
Fast paced and unusual thriller about an assassin tracking down the witness - a cab driver - for the murder of his unfaithful wife.
It takes place in Paris by night. It is unusual because the hero - the leading character, Lino Ventura - is the villain. The only bad guy character of his entire career. It is really a tragic story with a splendid climax. A grade B movie but very effective. I don't think American producers know this picture, because there would be enough material to shot a "remake".
It reminds me, in a different scale, the Terminator. The cab driver would be the character played by Michael Biehn, or Jamie Fox confronted with Tom Cruise in "Collateral".
Aaaaaaaaargh "grade B" /"American remake !!!" "Terminator" ? " Collateral" ? Késsecé kce con !?
