The Scheming Women

In the forties and the fifties,Henry Decoin's forte was the film noir:"non coupable" which remains ignored today might be his masterpiece,but there are other interesting works such as "la vérité sur Bébé Donge"or "les inconnus dans la maison" .The almost documentary approach of "Razzia sur la chnouff" (about drugs) seems modern even today.And some works which are difficult to see ("Maléfices" "Bonnes à tuer" and "tous peuvent me tuer" probably deserve to be watched).

"Les intrigantes " belongs to Decoin's films noirs.An extremely good cast (Jeanne Moreau,Raymond Pellegrin and Raymond Rouleau)is very appealing.It strongly displays Hitchcock's influence ,much more than his contemporaries Clouzot and Duvivier: Moreau's face reflected on Pellegrin's glasses is a quotation from "Strangers on a train" (1951) and the use of a theater during the whole movie and for the final sequences recall "stage fright" (1950).Rouleau plays a theater owner who is accused of pushing his associate from a foot-bridge above the stage.But the script is not really good.Moreau's and Pellegrin's (her lover) attitudes do not make much sense.Why ,for instance,does Moreau hide her husband in a mental hospital when he's about to be arrested ? Even if she wants to put him off the scent,it will not delude him for long anyway.

Louis de Funes's fans can be interested in his small part of a lousy playwright.He is not the comic relief though,this is reserved to a man called "Carcassone" whose interventions are irritating.