Not a prequel to Psycho;a sequel to "strangers on a train" or "notorious" more like! The over possessive mother was present long before the 1960 masterpiece in Hitchcock's canon.Madeleine Robinson,more than Belmondo ,is the stand-out .She won the Volpi Cup and she really deserved it.Her portrayal of the bourgeois mother,more pitiful than really maleficent relegates the rest of the cast to walk-ons.
The treatment is certainly HItchcockian ,particularly in the second half .We know the name of the criminal twenty minutes before the ending;Thus Chabrol avoids the "whodunit" which A.H. did not like either.Abetted by Henri -"Plein Soleil" (M.Ripley)René Clément,same year-Decae 's sensational cinematography and inventive use of colors ,particularly in the scenes in the country (flowers,trees,brook) and in Leda's apartment during the murder,he takes what is primarily a bourgeois drama out of the living-rooms.
The mother is the "villain" of the movie but I do not think that Chabrol wanted us to like the other ones:Belmondo and his pal are scroungers;as for the father ,the simple fact that he cannot see his son's tragedy (and that he can't even forgive him for what he's done!!!) makes him an irresponsible unpleasant man.
An attack against the bourgeoisie was not that much new :even if he introduces "nouvelle vague " characters,if you know the pre-nouvelle vague FRench cinema,you will notice how much ,unlike Truff ,God' et al , Chabrol owes a lot to Decoin,Clouzot,Duvivier,and Louis Daquin whose "Voyageur de la Tousssaint" already possessed almost everything which is in " a Double Tour".
In "A double Tour" ,his first thriller ,Chabrol is still prisoner of his American influence .Besides the elements of pure "nouvelle vague" -the long prologue with Bernadette Laffont at her window,the two pals' boozing - get in the way.He is still a creator-in-waiting ,and when he finds the perfect atmosphere,the perfect actress and the perfect musician,he will give his late sixties/early seventies masterful works such as "La Femme Infidèle" "Le Boucher" "la Rupture " or "Juste Avant la Nuit"."A double Tour paved a reliable way to those future achievements.
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