Enough Rope (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Dec 19, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Claude Autant-LaraRelease Date(s)
1963 (October 29, 2024)Studio(s)
Coron Filmproduktion/Galatea Film/International Productions/Les Films Marceau/Sancro Film (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
A pretty good French thriller, Enough Rope (Le meurtrier, “The Murderer,” 1963) is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s 1954 novel The Blunderer, her third of 22 works that include Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Enough Rope is, in fact, something like Strangers on a Train twisted inside-out. The film has an excellent cast and keeps its audience guessing about the directions it takes. Not so much a whodunit, the film is more of a where-is-this-story-taking-us?
The film opens with a pre-titles sequence that plainly shows bespectacled bookseller Melchior Kimmel (Gert Fröbe) brutally murdering his wife, Helen (Paulette Dubost) at a roadside stop, he leading her to a remote area and stabbing her to death. He later claims to have been at a cinema across from his shop at the time Helen was murdered, and though the police and public alike believe Kimmel got away with murder, officially the case remains unsolved.
Meanwhile, architect Walter Saccard (Maurice Ronet) is very unhappily married to wealthy Clara (Yvonne Furneaux), she insanely jealous, petty, and insecure, taunting him endlessly while refusing to divorce him. She’s attempted suicide once before. He’s in love with Ellie (curiously top-billed Marina Vlady) and, after reading about the Kimmel case, becomes obsessed with that seemingly perfect crime, visiting Kimmel’s shop and clipping newspaper stories about the notorious case.
When Clara leaves by bus to visit her sick mother, Saccard follows her to a roadside stop not unlike the one where Kimmel murdered his wife. When the bus passengers enter the stop’s café, Saccard follows the group, but Clara has inexplicably vanished and the bus leaves without her. Saccard returns home and the next morning Clara’s body is found nearby, she having jumped or been pushed from a cliff. Was it a suicide? A murder?
Ambitious police inspector Corby (Robert Hossein) catches Saccard telling numerous lies about his whereabouts on the night of Clara’s death and his obsession with the Kimmel case, leading Corby to conclude both men are guilty and that he can solve two murders for the price of one.
Since remade as A Kind of Murder (2016) by director Andy Goddard and starring Patrick Wilson and Jessica Biel, Enough Rope is a faithful adaptation, including its depiction of Corby as a near-psychotic who, in the French police manner, physically abuses Kimmel, sadistically crushing the nearly-blind suspect’s eyeglasses. As played by Hossein, Corby is brutal and completely unlikable.
The main point of interest in the film is also its major weakness: Saccard’s unhealthy interest in Kimmel’s “perfect murder,” and his vague intentions to follow in the book dealer’s footsteps is intriguing and believable, especially given Clara’s relentless shrewishness. On the other hand, Saccard’s dumb, easily exposed lies-upon-lies play right into Corby’s malevolent hands, making Saccard repeatedly appear extraordinarily foolish at times.
Maurice Ronet, however, almost makes the audience forgive these failings. Best playing conflicted characters such as here, Ronet had a prolific career in France, including as Phillippe Greenleaf in Purple Noon (1960), the first adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley. He was closely associated with Louise Malle, having starred in Elevator to the Gallows and Le feu follet. His many credits include The Champagne Murders, Line of Demarcation, and La Piscine (The Swimming Pool). David Lean originally cast him in the Omar Sharif role in Lawrence of Arabia but replaced him, reportedly because of his accent.
Gert Fröbe is particularly good as Kimmel, a cool customer and intelligent murderer most of the time, but with a breaking point and no match for off-the-rails Corby. Most impressive are scenes with Fröbe in his full-on psychotic state; behind the Coke-bottle glasses Fröbe’s maniac is genuinely creepy. Reportedly it was the 1958 German film It Happened in Broad Daylight, in which Fröbe played a serial killer, that caught the eye of the producers of Goldfinger, but I wonder if this performance also might have been a factor in his casting as 007’s greatest villain. Fröbe had been busy in both French and West German films in the early ‘60s and spoke both English and French, though he’s dubbed here, except some mutterings in German. Amusingly, the name of Kimmel’s shop is “The Golden Book.”
Kino’s Blu-ray of Enough Rope sources a 4K restoration of the original negative done in France. Shot in 2.35:1 Franscope, the black-and-white image looks great, impressively sharp with fine detail and awash with inky blacks. The optional English subtitles of the French audio (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono) is as excellent as the audio. Region “A” encoded.
The only extras are a clever French trailer, also subtitled and narrated by Robert Hossein, and a just-okay audio commentary track by film historians David Del Valle and Dana M. Reemes.
Though not in the same league as the best French crime thrillers of the period, Enough Rope’s leading performances are engaging, the film is beautifully photographed Jacques Natteau, and Highsmith’s story is intriguing and unusual. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV