Le concerto de la peur

Probably best known in America for Chet Baker's marvellous free-jazz score (rivalling Miles Davis's for "Ascenseur pour l'echafaud"), this is a cheaply made but enjoyably atmospheric and idiosyncratic crime movie. A couple of Parisian drug gangs (one led by a blind, philosophical, trumpet-playing boss) are battling over turf, leading to kidnappings, beatings, murders, betrayals and other intrigues. And this being a José Benazeraf film, there are timeouts for stolen lust, striptease and a great cat fight.

Like all JB's early films, the action scenes are a bit slipshod, and the dialog and acting at times risible (or at least campy), but he has a fine sense for composition and a wonderful manner of elegantly posing (and, with females, draping) his characters against gritty backdrops. He always managed to cast strikingly sensuous, angel-faced women in strong roles, never more so than in this picture. If you're looking for that enigmatic, self-consciously noirish late-show style of Sam Fuller, or Lemmy Caution (but more intellectually inclined), or early Hollywood-quoting Godard (but less intellectually inclined), then you'll get it in spades here.

Apparently, the notorious L.A. schlockmeister Bob Cresse picked this little number up, cut and added some footage, and released it as "Night of Lust", earning a tidy profit.