Word: broca
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Brackman is back in Boston--for the first time since 1969, when Life sent him here to cover the Harvard strike of that spring--and he is, as he desires, back into show business. He wrote the lyrics for King of Hearts, the musical version of Phillipe de Broca's Cambridge cult film which opens this week in Boston, moving to New York in the middle of October. When we met for an interview at Bartley's Burger Cottage last week, he was relaxed--although he did chain-smoke--open, friendly, and above all, interesting. Not to mention funny...
Dear Inspector--A delightful, if not too deep, French film about a female detective, a big-ass murder case, and an incipient love affair. Philippe de Broca's first film in a long while is rather pleasing, even if the mystery suffers some for the sake of the romantic comedy. Philippe Noiret and Annie Girardot make a good pair. A little thin...
...victims and one police inspector who is assigned to the case after Lise is temporarily taken off it. In the end, though, the mystery dissolves into silliness--save for one scene suffused with skillful tension in an abandoned factory housing both murder weapons, murderer and a body. Here, de Broca displays the full range of his directorial talents. It is at once scary, funny, and filled with a series of excellently chosen and effective shots and camera angles. Nonetheless, the elements of suspense fall by the wayside as Antoine and a series of dumb jokes combine to cinch the case...
Technically, Dear Inspector displays a sure competence, but not much else. While nothing is marred, the camera work is generally unspectacular, and the selection of shots shows proficiency but a similar lack of excitement. De Broca's direction, however, more than makes up for the everyday technical side of his film. He knows how to get the most out of a comic situation, and fortunately for this film, he can interplay a mediocre mystery with his major plot, as he did so well with Jean-Paul Belmondo in That Man From...
...dialogue and all of its meaning. And though Dear Inspector is just another in a continuing series of films featuring "successful" women, it should not be stereotyped as such. Rather, it is an amusing and satisfying, if slightly dumb, romantic comedy in the true French tradition. Philippe de Broca is definitely back perhaps back to stay...