What constitutes noir? Urban setting, check. Rain-splattered street, check. Larceny, check. Gunshots, check. All the above are present and correct in the opening MINUTES of Chair de poule and a femme fatale isn't far behind. This was Julien Duviviers penultimate movie in a career spanning seven decades and coming as it did at the tail end of the new wavelet I like to think it helped to see off that pretentious hiccup which temporarily blighted a Great Film industry. Having opened on two men sitting in a car as torrential rain lashes the city streets Duvivier has them proceed to break in to a private home, get caught in the act of opening the safe by the owner, engage in a struggle involving gunshots and flee the scene. Then, taking a leaf out of Jacques Tourneur's book he moves the whole noir genre to the great outdoors (Tourneur shot most of Out Of The Past in a rural setting). Robert Hossein, fleeing the crime scene is given a lift by a somewhat naive filling station owner who offers him room, board, and a job which involves access to his sultry wife. You may be ahead of me here because yes, it does smack of The Postman Always Rings Twice but we're talking Duvivier here and he turns the whole thing up a notch introducing a fourth character where Postman was confined to three. He keeps the thing moving remorselessly to a climax that's Greek in its inevitability. Not to be missed.
Review of Highway Pick-Up
