Chances are if someone says - or writes - Police Commissaire, French, middle-aged, the knee-jerk response nine out of ten times will be Maigret yet as I watched Bernard Blier playing a middle-aged police commissaire I didn't think Harry Baur, Albert Prejean or even Jean Gabin, successful Maigrets to a man, instead I thought Louis Jouvet and perhaps the reason I did so was because Jouvet played that sort of role in Clouzot's Quai des Orfevres and more pertinently the guy in the frame for murder was none other than Bernard Blier; nor does it end there, in both films there was an actress named Suzy - Blier was married to Suzy Blair (also a suspect) in Quai des Orfevres and Suzy Prim is a murder victim in Suivez cet homme and we're still not done; in both films both Suzys are the subject of - for want of a blunter word - 'ambiguous' attention from another woman and finally in Suivez cet homme two male murderers transport a body in a wicker hamper as did Simone Signoret and Vera Clouzot in another Clouzot movie Les Diaboliques. Gee, I knew that watching French movies on a regular basis would come in useful some day. Voice-overs aren't too thick on the ground in French Cinema but here Blier uses the device to link two cases in which he was involved. Far too little use is made of Suzy Prim but a bonus for me was quadruple-threat (producer-actor-writer-director) Yves Robert in a supporting role. A real curio
Review of Suivez cet homme
