Le dos au mur / Back to the Wall (1958) / AvaxHome

Jacques Decrey, an industrialist, finds out that his wife Gloria has a lover. Posing as a man named Berthier, he blackmails her. After a while, Decrey decides to make Yves Normand, a young unemployed actor and Gloria's lover, out to be the blackmailer. But doing so he has set off an infernal machine…

IMDB 7.0/10 from 98 users

Director: Édouard Molinaro
Writer: François Chavane, Frédéric Dard (dialogue), Frédéric Dard (novel), Frédéric Dard (screenplay), Jean Redon (dialogue), Jean Redon (screenplay), Jean-Louis Roncoroni (screenplay)
Actors: Jeanne Moreau, Gérard Oury, Philippe Nicaud, Claire Maurier
Rated: N/A
Runtime: 94 min

One night, Jacques Decrey stops his car in front of the factory where he is the manager. He takes a corpse out of the car and hides it in one of the walls of the factory with cement. The dead man is Yves Normand, his wife Gloria's lover. Jacques recalls how it all started, three months earlier, when he came home from work to find a man kissing his wife on the doorstep. From the number plate of the car belonging to the man, Jacques was able to infer his rival's identity. Jacques began to play with the situation, hiring a private detective named Mauvin to take pictures of Gloria and Yves. Then he began to blackmail the lovers and it amused him to see Gloria asking him for money to pay off her blackmailer. But the situation soon became more complicated than Jacques could ever have envisaged. He did not expect that the relationship between Gloria and Yves would get out of hand and that she would kill her lover…

Edouard Molinaro, a contemporary of the French New Wave, released a few thrillers at the beginning of his career and would become a prolific film director in the late 50s and 60s. Later on, Molinaro specialised in popular comedies, with big stars like Brigitte Bardot, Louis de Funès, Jacques Brel, Lino Ventura, Annie Girardot, and others. His first film, Le Dos au mur, was released on 7th March 1958. This crime drama is based on a Frédéric Dard novel entitled Delivrez nous du mal and received a positive reception from both critics and the public. Released at the same time as Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'echafaud, it was a highly successful film, having the characteristically grim mood that we find in every Dard-inspired film noir. With some help from the film director Claude Sautet, Le Dos au mur benefits from a taut plot and some clever mise-en-scène. The strength of this story, which is about adultery, murder, blackmail and betrayal, comes from the opposition that the two lovers put up against their entourage, resulting in a tragic outcome.

Jeanne Moreau, one of the most controversial actresses of her generation, was the obvious choice for the female lead character. After being the unfaithful Florence in the aforementioned Louis Malle film, Moreau shines in Le dos au mur as the unfaithful Gloria, just before she played another femme infidèle, in Malle's Les Amants. Before he became a famous film director, Gérard Oury started his career as an actor in the 1940s. Even if he is impeccable here as a cynical, cold-blooded character, this part should perhaps have been given to Robert Hossein, the par excellence Frédéric Dard actor (illustrated by: Les Salauds vont en enfer; Toi, le venin; Les Scélerats; and Le Monte-charge). The actor-singer Philippe Nicaud (seen alongside Brigitte Bardot in Voulez-vous danser avec moi) is cast as Moreau's somewhat incredible lover. Self-mocking comic Jean Lefebvre and Claire Maurier (Jean-Pierre Léaud's mother in Truffaut's Les 400 coups) complete the cast of a thriller that has what it takes to hold the viewer's attention - and who could ask for more?

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