La crime (1983) User Reviews

Inspector Griffon

[jotix100 · 6/10 · 16 September 2009]

When two impersonating police officers enter a Parisian court of justice, they have one thing in mind, get rid of the lawyer D'Alins, a man that probably knows too much about illegal activities that would tie him to unscrupulous Avram Kazavian. Inspector Martin Griffon steps in to begin the investigation, he is accompanied by Rambert, a deceiving man with an important job in the police department, who is now married to his former wife. Rambert will be a key figure in this case. Also on hand in the court of justice is the journalist Sybille Berger. She is the first one on the scene and she will be another important part in solving the case, as well as getting involved with Griffon.

This 1983 French film, which we never saw when it was released, was recently shown on channel. Phillipe Labro, its director, had his moment in the industry, but he has not done much lately, in spite of the promise he brought to the cinema. He collaborated on the screenplay and showed he was a natural for the crime genre.

Claude Brasseur, who also played an inspector in Georges Franju's "Les yeux san visage", was a natural choice for the role of Griffon. He was born to play the policeman in this film. American born Gabrielle Lazure, has done well in the French cinema, as she shows here with her take on the journalist that helps Griffon solve the crime. Jean-Claude Brially, has a pivotal part in the film.

"La crime" will surprise fans of the genre.

A real gem

[Thorsten-Krings · 10/10 · 27 March 2007]

A lot of people regard this film as being run of the mill and stereotypical. I tend to disagree. What happened was that Labro directed a very classical dark series 40s film with scerwball elements in early 80s France. So needless to say that he uses motives from the dark series as opposed to stereotypes. Martin Griffon is very much a dark series hero but particularly in the original French version he is also very Gallic (up to the point of caricature), a slob who coughs up phlegm. Essentially he is Columbo on acid which works and is very funny. The film itself is complex, full of deceit and corruption but not as confuse as classic dark series films. I actually find the story fast paced and original and the characters are intriguing and played by excellent actors. Gabrielle Lazure's character adds a touch of screwball comedy and Dayle Haddon as love sick dominatrix is excellent. So the film works on many levels: it's full of suspense, romantic (in the meaning of having a knight looking for his holy grail: the truth), funny, elegant (particularly the dialog)and well acted. There is Brasseur, born to play the hard nosed copper, the gorgeous Gabrielle Lazure, legends Jean Claude Braily & Jean Louis Tritingnat and the unfortunately underrated Dayle Haddon, who used to be a Disney actress until she decided to strip off for Playboy in the 70s. The also has a terrific soundtrack. And watch out for the character called Inspector Gomez- this actor must have played a cop in every French film I have ever seen. Sadly director Labro never had the impact in the film industry he should have had which was largely due to the fact that he went into management and later suffered from depression which rendered him unable to work for a long time.