Red-Barracuda A job goes wrong for two safe-crackers and a security guard is murdered. The thief who committed the murder escapes punishment and his partner is convicted for the crime he was responsible for. After being sentenced to twenty years, he uses his skills to escape and winds up befriending a man who owns a cafe/filling station in the mountains. When his young wife discovers the safe-cracker's past, she blackmails him into opening her husband's safe. Needless to say, the husband catches them in the act and is accidentally killed in the process. Not long after the ex-partner hooks up with his colleague on the run and the plot thickens further.This French crime-drama is an example of a very dark neo-noir. Every character we encounter in the cast is bad on at least some level. It's a world populated with people of different shades of dark grey, with greed and lust the main emotions of motivation. At the centre of the drama is an anti-hero who is caught in a web spun by a femme fatale, who is out to get all she can. But these are no one dimensional characters, for example the gold digging young wife acts very selfishly, yet you do sort of sympathise with her powerless position in life as a possession of her old and unattractive husband; while at the same time we understand the reasons why everyone does what they do, they all seem to be caught in traps of some kind or other. Acting is very good with Robert Hossein leading the piece and Jean Sorel his partner in crime, but perhaps it is Catherine Rouvel who is most memorable as the femme fatale whose actions propel the drama into tragedy.

Spikeopath Daniel Boisett (Robert Hossein) and his friend Paul Genest (Jean Sorel) are disturbed by the home owner during an attempted safe-cracking. In the ensuing mêlée, Paul accidentally kills the home owner and both men flee the scene in panic. Paul manages to escape but Daniel is shot and wounded by police and is promptly sentenced to a lengthy stint in prison. Fourteen months later Daniel manages to escape and while out walking on the road he meets up with Thomas (Georges Wilson), who after the pair quickly become friends, offers him a job at the Mountain Relay Station he owns. Daniel adopts a new alias and accepts the offer, but once there he meets Thomas' sexy young gold digging wife, Maria (Catherine Rouvel), and nothing will ever be the same from here on in... Directed by Julien Duvivier (Pépé le Moko), who also co-adapts the screenplay with René Barjavel from the novel "Come Easy--Go Easy" written by James Hadley Chase, Chair de poule (AKA: Highway Pick-Up) is French film noir excellence. A picture that carries all the hallmarks of the 40s and 50s classic film noir cycle, and proudly wears this fact as a badge of honour. Comparisons have inevitably been drawn to The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett 1946), which in itself is no bad thing at all, but this is still very much its own animal. Duvivier never lets the story sit still as a standard formulaic plot, there's always some new twisty addition to the story coming around the corner, unstable characters entering the fray to keep the bleak noirish stew bubbling away.A fascinating feature of the picture is that our main protagonist, Daniel Boisett, is actually a good guy. Sure he was a safe-cracker, but he's not murderous, and as it turns out fate conspires against him to make him seem like a multiple killer, when he clearly is not. He took the fall for his mate, escapes jail and tries desperately to start afresh with honesty and virtue. But once Maria comes into his life fate has already dealt its deadly trump card. Women always pay with the same currency... Maria is an absolute sex bomb, a sizzling siren of sexuality, but as Daniel tells her, it's a pity she's so rotten, because she is, and very much so. Yes, there's a back story to her that stings her emotional fortitude, but she's a bad egg for sure. Things quickly spiral out of control, where even though Daniel knows that Maria is a femme fatale of the highest order, he's caught in a trap, a trap from which himself and the other male players in the piece can't possibly escape. Visually it's an intriguing picture as most of it is set in daylight up at a picturesque location. It begins in classic noir territory in the pouring rain as the men begin the safe-cracking job, and then during the escape, Duvivier and his cinematographer Léonce-Henri Burel produce a magnificent shot of a cop's giant silhouette felling the fleeing Daniel. After this we are predominantly in high light terms, but never once does the sense of claustrophobia dissipate, the atmosphere is consistently hot and sticky. Impressively performed and directed, Chair de poule is cynical, bleak and like a coiled spring waiting to explode. From that bleak rainy beginning to the explosively ironic finale, this is, basically, an essential viewing for film noir aficionados. 9/10

morrison-dylan-fan With having become a fan of the under rated BollyWood Noir genre after seeing the terrific 2008 adaptation of James Hadley Chase's There's Always A Price Tag film Maharathi,and also interested in taking a look at the work of Robert Hossein,after being left breathless from co-writer/actor/director Hossein's tragically overlooked Spaghetti Western Cemetery Without Crosses,I was shocked to recently discover that Hossein and Chase's paths had crossed,thanks to Hossein starring in co-writer/director Julien Duviver's Film Noir adaptation of Chase's Come Easy-Go Easy.Excited about seeing Hossein enter Chase's Noir world,I decided to pull up a chair so that I could hopefully witness the Poule enter a dark,and deadly Noir world.The plot:Suspecting a recent customers's safe to contain some very high- priced item,friends and work mates Daniel Boisett and Paul Genest decide to take advantage of their job as safe repairmen,and plan a heist of a client's safe that they have recently repaired.Entering the clients apartment under the cover of darkness,Daniel and Paul skillfully open the safe,and are delighted to find more valuables than they ever could have imagined.Sadly for Boisett and Genest,their moment of joy is stopped in its tracks,when their now betrayed customers makes a surprise early return.Pushing their former client out of the way,Daniel and Paul attempt to make a joint escape out of the hotel,but are sadly forced to go their separate ways,when the hotel security guard shoots one of Boisett lungs and stops him from reaching Genest's getaway car.Staying loyal to his only friend,Daniel refuses to reveal in court who the person was that teamed up with him for the attempted robbery.Sentanced to 20 years, Boisett begins to get himself ready to live the next 2 decades of his life behind bars.On the long train journey to the prison,the guards decide to take a short break,which leads to Daniel using his wits and escaping from the guards as quickly as possible.Fearing that he is a marked man,Boisett starts to walk to a small village,where Daniel hopes he will be able to find an isolated safe house that will keep the cops off his tracks.Walking to the village,Boisett runs into a man called Thomas,who is in desperate need for help in re-starting his car.Helping Thomas to fix his car,Boisett is left speechless,when Thomas tells Daniel (who is using a fake name) that as a thank you for the help Boisett gave him repairing the car,he would be more than happy to stop Daniel "drifting" for a few days,by giving him a room at a petrel station/café/motel that Thomas runs with his second wife,Maria. Relived about being given a place of residence on the outskirts of the quiet village,Daniel begins to suspect that things may not be as quiet in the Thomas's workplace as they appear on the outside,when Thomas introduces his second wife Maria,who Boisett soon begins to fear may have gotten married to Thomas,for something other than love…View on the film:Setting off a Film Noir mist across the movie within the first 5 minutes,director Julien Duviver and cinematography Leonce-Henri Burel stylishly reveal the near total lack of "light" that will be allowed to enter any of the character's lives,by making sharp,lightning like burst of raindrops be the only source that brings to light how disastrous Genest and Boisett heist goes.Keeping all of the character's in the grip of darkness that is released at the start,Duviver gives the daylight scenes a chilling atmosphere of a storm erupting at any second,thanks to Duviver expertly over exposing the light in this terrific Film Noir,which help to give the scenes a razor's edge intensity of the darkness decaying the signs of light in the movie.For the night scenes in the film,Duviver gives the the movie a tremendous Gothic feel,by using thundering showers to reveal the muddying waters that are bubbling away,which contain Maria's real reason for being in "love" with Thomas.Along with his expert eye for stylish lighting,Duviver also uses long,well handled tracking shots to subtle show,that instead of being an "escape to freedom",Boisett's acceptance of Thomas's kind offer,gradually transforms into Boisett finding himself corned by far deadlier things than those that he attempted to escape from.Appearing unexpectedly fresh faced looking in the film,Robert Hossein gives an excellent performance as Daniel Boisett,with Hossein peeling away Boisett's dreams & desires with an unflinching rawness,which gradually uncovers,that behind Boisett's "innocent" face,lays a man who is literal prepared to laugh into an inferno of hell.Joining Hossein,Georges Wilson gives an extremely well balanced performance as Thomas,with Wilson making Thomas kindness never feel forced,whilst also setting Thomas up to be the unlucky fall guy,due to being the only person in this shadowy world who has any sign of optimism.Contrating Wilson's cheerful performance,the gorgeous Catherine Rouvel gives a wonderfully icy performance as femme fatale Maria,with Rouvel curling the corner of her lips ever time Maria declares her feeling for Thomas,that quickly changes into a wicked smile,as Maria unleashes the deadly venom that she has saved for Thomas and Boisett.

melvelvit-1 Locksmith Daniel Boisett (Robert Hossein) and his co-worker Paul Genest (Jean Sorel), friends since childhood, supplement their income with the occasional burglary until life spins wildly out of control one rainy night after Paul kills a man who catches them robbing his apartment. Paul manages to escape but Daniel's wounded by police and, taking the fall alone, is later sentenced to 20 years in prison but, enroute to the big house, he escapes and hitches a ride with the middle-aged Thomas (Georges Wilson) who offers him a job at his roadside restaurant. Daniel quickly accepts but soon finds out that Thomas' sexy young wife, Maria (Catherine Rouvel), has had her eye on the nest egg in her husband's safe for a long time and could use a man like him...Julien Duvivier's classic French noir, based on a ripe piece of pulp fiction by James Hadley Chase ("Come Easy -Go Easy"), careens into THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE territory at this point but the story takes so many breathless twists and turns, any comparisons are ultimately unfair. All kinds of complications ensue when Maria's husband ends up dead and Paul pops up again but "no good deed goes unpunished" in this perverse universe where greed, lust, and self-preservation trump decent human emotions like love and friendship every time. Daniel's the quintessential noir anti-hero, caught in a vortex of nightmarish cause and effect, and the femme fatale's a feral sex kitten who double-crosses anyone who crosses her path. Like MGM's version of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, much of HIGHWAY PICKUP takes place in broad daylight, giving the film an "evil under the sun" aura and even though a stylistic shadow world, hallmark of the American Film Noir, is absent here, thematically the film's as bleak and as black as they come. The bitterly ironic ending, reminiscent of both Robert Siodmak's CRISS CROSS and Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING, is a memorable one.