Watch Witness in the City For Free

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

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It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is an unusual French film from 1959, in that the wondrous Lino Ventura plays the bad guy and the 'Radio Taxi' outfit seem to play the police. Whilst this is a French homage to the US film noir, it still is very much its own with plenty of cafe stops, great night shots of Paris and perhaps unwisely and emphasis on humour rather than hard edged action, although there is some of that too. Always engaging, we see the immaculately organised Ventura do the dirty and then incredulously see him struggle to tie up one unfortunate loose end. I didn't feel that Ventura was comfortable as the baddie and he was not as convincing as he should have been so perhaps this is why his failings are almost treated as jokes. Uneven but certainly has some great moments and if the zoo scenes, at the end,don't quite work as well as they should, the absolute finale is a cracker.

Fast paced and unusual thriller about an assassin tracking down the witness - a cab driver - for the murder of his unfaithful wife.It takes place in Paris by night. It is unusual because the hero - the leading character, Lino Ventura - is the villain. The only bad guy character of his entire career. It is really a tragic story with a splendid climax. A grade B movie but very effective. I don't think American producers know this picture, because there would be enough material to shot a "remake". It reminds me, in a different scale, the Terminator. The cab driver would be the character played by Michael Biehn, or Jamie Fox confronted with Tom Cruise in "Collateral".

This is really a minor work,but which retains a certain passé charm.The main asset of the movie is Henri Decae's cinematography ,as dazzling as usual.All the night scenes are impressive,the taxis gathering for the chase,the zoological garden with its nocturnal birds ,watching the fighting between the two men.The screenplay is somewhat disappointing,coming for two writers of Boileau-Narcejac calibre(Vertigo,les diaboliques).There are few surprises,unexpected twists,the Boileau-Narcejac trademarks .The very first scene shows Hitchcock's influence ("shadow of a doubt").Lino Ventura is cast against type because he rarely plays the villains.Perhaps which is to Molinaro's credit is his depiction of the taxi drivers.From their breakfast at dawn in the bistros where they enjoy coffee and croissants to the rooms where the operators send their messages to the drivers,these are charming vignettes of old Paris at the beginning of general De Gaulle mandate.Edouard Molinaro's best film remains "la mort de Belle"(1963).His career is essentially commercial,the likes of "la cage aux folles" and "l'emmerdeur" (which was to become Billy Wilder's "buddy buddy").

Excellent, very entertaining cat-and-mouse thriller, as an avenging husband (the incomparable Lino Ventura) tries to kill a witness to a murder. In its spare monochrome Decae photography, cool jazz soundtrack, nocturnal settings, focus on elaborate plot mechanics, and privileging of an unlovely outsider, the film is reminiscent of Melville. The 'villain' is only responding to a vicious circle of transgression and injustice, and his plight becomes an allegory for the lonely outsider locked out of a conformist society. The rigorous purity of Melville's aesthetic is softened by romance and comedy, but these only intensify the sense of impending tragedy.