Verdict
Summary
Radiance has just released a stellar limited edition three-disc box set called Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau, and all three titles in the box are worth checking out, with strong, high definition transfers, an 80 page booklet, a slew of bonus features worth checking out, and a hard shell slipcase. I’m so glad to have been able to watch and review these films because I otherwise might’ve overlooked them. This set is totally worth adding to your collection.
Choice of Arms (1981) Plot:
Two criminals escape prison and begin a spree of chaos and destruction over the next few days and nights as the police try to stop them.
Review:
A prison break sees a getaway car pick up two criminals as they escape. One of them is the loose cannon Mickey (Gerard Depardieu), a low level thug with a lust for life. In their escape, Mickey kills a policeman, not thinking twice about it. The three guys in the car end up in the countryside where they try pulling into an abandoned building, but another gang is holed up there and shoot out of fear of being invaded. Mickey’s fellow escapee is mortally wounded, and the other guy is killed. Mickey kills most of the other gang in retaliation. This whole escape plan is not off to a good start. Mickey takes his friend to a nearby ranch where he sees horses frolicking in a stable. The owner of the ranch is a former crime kingpin, now retired, a guy named Noel (Yves Montand) who has a very beautiful and devoted wife named Nicole (Catherine Deneuve). Mickey drops off his wounded friend, demanding that they take care of him, and drives off in a huff to Paris in the dead of morning. Mickey goes to visit the young daughter he’s never seen before (her mother recently committed suicide), showing up and dropping off cash as if that’s his only way to communicate that he cares about the girl. He also revisits his old stomping grounds, reconnecting with members of his old gang, disrupting their peaceful lives. Meanwhile, a squad of cops and detectives are following Mickey’s trail of destruction as he robs stores and bystanders for cash. Back at the ranch, Noel realizes that Mickey, an unpredictable thug, will be back, and so he sequesters his wife Nicole at a hotel for a few days to try to keep her safe, and Noel assembles his old partners in crime to come up with a plan to keep Mickey out of their hair, which means tracking down his habits and his associates to be one step ahead of him in the event that they’ll need to kill him before he creates more chaos. As Mickey blazes his path of destruction and becomes more manic and carefree, he incites the wrath of both the former kingpin and the cops when he is the catalyst for a showdown where everyone converges in the middle of the night at a location where destinies will forever be changed.
Long at 135 minutes, but compelling, if quite depressing, Choice of Arms has a runaway train quality to it with Depardieu’s very human and believable performance as a dim-witted and dangerous thug with no direction, only a path towards doom. The film has a distinct forlorn feel that becomes more desperate and sad as it goes along, but a beautiful (and sparse) score by Philippe Sarde really gives the film some beauty that it needs. Alain Corneau’s direction is assured and strong.
Police Python 357 (1976) Plot:
A detective finds himself at the center of a murder investigation where he’s the prime suspect.
Review:
Police Inspector Marc Ferrot (Yves Montand) begins a complicated romance with a woman he barely knows, a mysterious beauty named Sylvia (Stefania Sandrelli) who always keeps him at arm’s length. He’s madly in love with this woman, and it’s causing his performance as a detective to suffer, and while they spend a lot of time together, he has no idea what she does for a living or where she lives. When she breaks his heart, he follows her to her apartment one night, and he’s observed by some strangers (and he drops a glove on the floor outside), which will be important later on because that very night, Sylvia is murdered by her other lover who happens to be Ferrot’s police inspector boss, the Commissioner (Francois Perier) who kills her in a jealous rage and then goes home to his invalid wife (Simone Signoret) who is fully aware that her husband has a lover and hears out his confession about the murder, completely understanding her husband’s woes and helping him think out how to cover up his crime. Meanwhile, the investigation for Sylvia’s death turns up lots of leads that point to one man, thanks to all of the witness accounts: Ferrot, who was seen all over town with her and lurking around her apartment complex the night of her murder. So, now Ferrot has to outsmart and outmaneuver all of his fellow detectives – but especially his boss who realizes he’s the prime suspect without giving voice to the fact – and with the walls closing in around him, Ferrot will have a hell of a time trying to prove he’s innocent while also desperately trying to figure out who the real killer is.
Police Python 357 is a twisty little thriller from filmmaker Alain Corneau, putting star Montand at the center of a plot that keeps you guessing and hoping that everything is turn out all right, but this is no ordinary thriller, but one that will have you gnawing on your knuckles until the end. With assured direction, and a solid score by George Delerue, this is a solid piece of filmmaking.
Serie Noire (1979) Plot:
A second rate door-to-door salesman falls in love with a very young prostitute and gets in way over his head when he kills for her.
Review:
Frank (Patrick Dewaere) is a greasy door-to-door salesman whose street beat covers the crime and grime-ridden low rent part of town, and one rainy day he knocks on a door where an old woman offers to make a trade with him: She offers the beautiful and very young woman named Mona (a teenager, played by Marie Trintignant who was 16 here) living with her to him for sex for a sweater he’s selling. He is stunned by this beautiful young creature who completely offers herself for the meager sweater he’s going door-to-door selling, but instead of having sex with the girl, he becomes protective of her and wants to save her somehow from this life of degradation she has fallen into. That said, Frank is no angel: he is skimming off the top from his scuzzy boss, who figures out quite easily that Frank is stealing from him (and Frank isn’t a very good salesman either) and throws him in jail for a few days and will press charges, but lo and behold Mona bails him out and pays off his debt to Frank’s boss, which put her smack in the middle of Frank’s priorities, despite the fact that he’s married already to a nagging wife he can’t stand. Frank and Mona come up with a terrible plan: He’ll kill the old lady she lives with, steal the large amount of cash she’s socked away from whoring Mona out, and blame another lowlife (played by Andreas Katsulas) for the crime, but nothing goes as planned and suddenly Frank finds himself needing to kill other people who are on his case. Will Mona be his prize or his undoing?
Bleak and pretty depressing despite the good performances (Dewaere is so good that he really seems like he’s the character he’s playing), Alain Corneau’s Serie Noire is based on a pulp novel by Jim Thompson called “A Hell of a Woman,” and the film really retains that browbeaten lowlife noir vibe that made so many hardboiled ’40s and ’50s film noirs so great. It’s not a happy, upbeat story, but it sure feels pretty realistic. Trintignant was absolutely gorgeous here, and her performance is raw and haunting.
Radiance has just released a stellar limited edition three-disc box set called Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau, and all three titles in the box are worth checking out, with strong, high definition transfers, an 80 page booklet, a slew of bonus features worth checking out, and a hard shell slipcase. I’m so glad to have been able to watch and review these films because I otherwise might’ve overlooked them. This set is totally worth adding to your collection.
Bonus Materials
- High-Definition digital transfers, presented on three discs
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio for each film
- Audio commentary by Mike White on Police Python 357
- Maxim Jakubowski on Police Python 357’s source novel and adaptation (2024)
- Archival interview with Alain Corneau and François Périer about Police Python 357 from Belgian Television (1976)
- Série noire set interviews with Alain Corneau, Patrick Dewaere and Miriam Boyer from Belgian Television (1981)
- Série noire: The Darkness of the Soul – An archival documentary featuring cast and crew on the making of the film (2013, 53 mins)
- Archival interview with Alain Corneau and Marie Trintignant about Série noire (2002, 30 mins)
- A visual essay about Jim Thompson adaptations for the screen (2024)
- Introduction by documentary filmmaker Jérôme Wybon (2024)
- Shooting Choice of Arms – interviews with the cast and crew including behind-the-scenes footage (1981)
- Interviews with Deneuve, Montand and Depardieu from the set (1981)
- Interview with Manuela Lazic on Yves Montand in the 1970s (2024)
- Trailers
- Optional English subtitles for each film
- Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
- Limited edition 80-page booklet featuring new writing by Charlie Brigden, Andrew Male, Nick Pinkerton, Travis Woods, and newly translated archival interviews with Alain Corneau
- Limited edition of 2500 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings
