Word: lise
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...ONLY REAL DISAPPOINTMENT on the cast is Lise Hilbolt as Marsha. Since actress Cherry Jones left Cambridge, the A R T has been without an ingenue, they should have looked a little longer before picking this one. She's pretty but she sure can't act. Her role, to be sure is ill-defined, but she misses every opportunity to find humor in what could be hilarious lines...
...Lise Kowalski...
...second plot, the one that dominates the film, concerns the inspector's blossoming romance with one Antoine Lemercier, played by Philippe Noiret. M. Lemercier teaches classical Greek literature at the Sorbonne, and after a (literal) chance run-in on the streets, he a Lise discover that they were college buddies who even dated a few times, 20-plus years earlier. He is instantly attracted to Lise, and begins a rather humorous pursuit that is complicated by her unwillingness to tell him that she is a detective working on the biggest case in France. So Antoine's romantic pursuit is frustrated...
...becomes more interesting. The film is certainly helped along by the presence of the achingly beautiful Catherine Alric, who dimwittedly plays the central figure in the unraveling story: as the mistress of at least two of the 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...
ALTHOUGH the mystery becomes ultimately unsatisfying, it is not the important part of this charming film; the romance between Lise and Antoine takes over, leaving the viewer happy in the knowledge that there is love in middle age. Noiret, a bearish, bemused-looking type, brings a wonderful sense of middle-aged bewilderment with the trappings of everyday life that complements his intelligence and humor. His winning portrayal of an academic bachelor suddenly rekindling his interest in the outside world charms the audience and negates the possible adverse appeal of his tubby, if otherwise endearing, figure...