Synopsis
Rich industrialist Jacques Decret learns his wife Gloria is having an affair with a young actor. For revenge, he bombards her with anonymous letters, convincing her that her lover is the culprit while Gloria desperately seeks a way out.
Back to the Wall
1958 ‘Le dos au mur’ Directed by Édouard Molinaro
Cast
Gérard Oury Jeanne Moreau Philippe Nicaud Jean Lefebvre Micheline Luccioni Claire Maurier Jean Michaud Albert Michel Colette Renard René Berthier Gérard Buhr Robert Bazil Jean Degrave Richard Francoeur Joëlle Janin Robert le Béal Jacques Mancier Pascal Mazzotti Jacqueline Noëlle Philippe Olive Aurore Chabrol Chantal de Rieux Jean-Marie Rivière
Director
Additional Directing
Producers
Writers
Original Writers
Editors
Cinematography
Additional Photography
Production Design
Art Direction
Set Decoration
Composer
Sound
Hairstyling
Studio
Country
Language
Alternative Titles
Acorralado, Evidence in Concrete, С гръб до стената, Mit dem Rücken zur Wand, Ο Δολοφόνος δεν Είμαι Εγώ, De espaldas a la pared, Háttal a falnak, Спиной к стене, 走投无路
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So you say you like film noir? So you say you like French films? So you say you like Jeanne Moreau? Well, have I got a film for you, bubby. Back to the Wall is terrific from beginning to end.
“This comedy was getting more and more sinister.”
Directed by Edouard Molinaro, best known for La Cage aux Folles, the film opens with a lengthy, tense, mostly silent sequence in which Jacques Decrey (Gerard Oury) carefully wraps a corpse in a carpet, takes it to a factory, and buries it in concrete. We later learn that the body is that of Yves Normand (Phillipe Nicaud), the lover of his wife, Gloria (Moreau). This opening scene is tightly constructed like something…
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Quite liked the ending. The only natural conclusion. Rest of it is pretty solid too, moves along nicely with some sharp photography. Jeanne Moreau spent 1958 cheating on her husbands.
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MIT DEM RÜCKEN ZUR WAND...
...oder mit dem Kopf im Zement.Jacques liebt seine Frau sehr und ist daher sehr betroffen, als er erfährt das sie eine Affäre mit einem anderen hat.
Doch aufgeben will Jacques nicht und schmiedet ein trickreiches Intrigenspiel mit bösem Ausgang...Sehr stimmungsvoller, teils ruhig erzählter NOIR aus Frankreich der in der Zeit der Nouvelle Vague entstand.
Alles ist da was ein FILM NOIR braucht:
Atmosphäre, Antihelden, verspielte als auch starre Perspektiven, eine Stimme aus dem Off und ein brodelndes Driften in den Fatalismus.Teils distanziert und zugleich nah ist man bei den Figuren, die unterschiedlicher und ähnlicher nicht sein könnten. Eine klare Grenze lässt sich nicht ziehen, eher verschwimmt diese.
Jacques ist Wohlhabend und Stolz.… -
Extra 1/2 star just for the long close-up of Jeanne Moreau staring out a rainy window, as though director Édouard Molinaro can’t look away from her. I know I couldn’t, I rewound and paused for a moment. Those deep black marble irises searching the void. She just kills me.
Clearly.Molinaro and cinematographer Robert Lefebvre shoot the hell out of this. I must have gasped at least five times at the pure beauty of this very clever and surprisingly fun noir.
The dialogue and music free opening sequence had me on the edge of my seat and made it clear immediately I was in for a treat.Definitely worth searching out. I had to purchase a Kino Lorber French Noir (oh darn) Blu Ray to see it.
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Well-scripted plot with well-earned twists and turns. I do think he was stupid to involve so many people in his plan but at least the script didn't set him up to fail that way. Gérard Oury is good, I don't believe I've ever seen him in a film, although I probably saw The Prize decades ago and I started Antoine & Antoinette but had to stop and have never gotten back to it. Anyway, he's very good in this. It dragged in the middle when his plan gets complicated, but is worth the wait for the last act.
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A movie like Back to the Wall highlights how central Clozout were to the development of French thriller, Mollinaro isn't quite a misanthrope like Hossein, but like his later Witness in the City the way this is designed a closed system of violence is more in debt to Clozout than the noirish reference points contemporary criticism might throw at him. One can also see Elevator to the Gallows shadow all over it, but this is more dramati exact and less stylish. It is a less imediate film than Witness in the City, but very efective purposes its narrative descent.
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I came to this film for Jeanne Moreau, and I stayed… for Jeanne Moreau, but not only, because this film’s got much more to offer than the radiating on-screen presence of its female star. I’m sure this is one of the many film noirs Gaumont and other French film studios put out, mostly with a moderate budget, after the success of Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” in 1958, also starring Jeanne Moreau. Said film was a compelling mixture of American B-movie style with the newly arrived sentiment of the Nouvelle Vague, combined with existentialist philosophy (though I rather regard “Gallows” as a fatalist film, though that’s a different topic I discussed in my review for that film).
Edouard Molinaro’s…
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A wealthy man (Gérard Oury) discovers that his wife (Jeanne Moreau) is carrying on an affair. His solution is to torment his wife with blackmail missives threatening to reveal her infidelity. The goal is to setup her lover (Philippe Nicaud) to take the fall. As usual events don't proceed quite as planned.
Directed by Édouard Molinaro and based on a novel by Frédéric Dard. I liked this much more than the director's Un Témoin dans la ville (1959). This is one of those stories with an intellectually engaging clockwork plot. I appreciated it for those qualities and it's beautifully photographed. The film is more lacking in the area of suspense and general tension. The ending could stand to be a bit punchier. Another example of Christmas Noir.
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Immediately became one of my favorite noirs.
The film begins with a bold sequence that heightens reality with economy. Sound, duration of shots, and precision in both the character's mannerisms and the filmmaking position the audience for a stripped down revenge tale.
And then the poetry begins.
As we get to know the characters involved in this love triangle, the slices of life we're shown crackle with humanity. What initially felt stripped down, becomes far more complicated as these characters fully bloom.
The dialog captures the longing, loss, humor, hope and disapointment of the situation, and the inevitability each character is heading towards (shown at the beginning of the film), takes on more emotional complexity. It is a far more satisfying and sophisticated film than I expected.
A beautiful calculation of the cost of love.
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If you think a perfect double feature does not exist, watch this one back-to-back with “Elevator to the Gallows.”
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Superb French thriller with exceptionally sharp cinematography and a crackerjack plot. The twists in the second half are both quite surprising and also completely logical at the same time, and the denouement is pitch perfect. Everything you’d want in a noir, including Jeanne Moreau at peak intensity.
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Le Dos au mur (1958) ist der erste abendfüllende Spielfilm von Édouard Molinaro, und auch wenn man Molinaro heute vor allem wegen seiner Komödien kennt – mein persönlicher Lieblingsfilm von ihm ist L’Emmerdeur mit Lino Ventura und Jacques Brel –, so handelt es sich bei diesem Erstling um einen handfesten Film noir, der alle Register seines Genres zieht. Im Zentrum der Geschichte steht der Industrielle Jacques Decrey (Gérard Oury), der durch einen Zufall herausfindet, daß ihn seine Ehefrau Gloria (Jeanne Moureau) betrügt – und zwar mit dem recht erfolglosen Schauspieler Yves Normand (Philippe Nicaud), mit dem sie bereits vor Urzeiten verbändelt war, bevor sie Decrey kennenlernte. Der gehörnte Ehemann ist von dieser Erkenntnis über alle Maßen getroffen, und er schmiedet…