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
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writers_reign5 October 2009
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myriamlenys18 February 2023In "Suivez cet homme", a clever though short-tempered police commissioner celebrates his fiftieth birthday. For him it's an occasion to look back upon two of his most striking cases : a case about the murder of a female pawnbroker/usurer and one about a violent robbery of a jeweler's shop.
Narratively speaking, it's a pity that the movie doesn't succeed in integrating both of the cases with each other : they feel like two distinct episodes connected only by the fact that they were being investigated by the same person. (Case number one ressembles a mystery thriller, while case number two strays more into crime/noir territory.) If one can overlook the problem, then "Suivez cet homme" turns into an entertaining and above-average "policier" dominated by a Bernard Blier in fine form.
The intrigue of the second case is quite clever. I defy any viewer to predict where the beginning, with its tale about an antique bird automaton, will lead him. At the same time there's a chilling, gritty depiction of the growing desensitization of two gangsters. In due course, even the youngest and most sensitive one of the two will develop a callous disregard for human life. Interestingly, the events relating to the second case are set in the time period shortly after the Liberation. One can well imagine the disarray of structures such as the police apparatus or the court system...
Like I've said, well worth a watch. -
"Suivez cet homme" is a true success in french criminal cinema from golden age. The always excellent Bernard Blier is a police inspector, playing it with its usual truculence, investigating two different cases, the first one indoor and the second one outdoor. The casting is marvellous, from Paul Frankeur, Yves Robert, Daniel Cauchy, ... for men to Suzy Prim and the most excellent Andrée Clément,... for women. Director Georges Lampin direct them with prompt exactitude and cinematography is fine. Both cases are full of tension, with a shocking climax (for the time) in the second. "Suivez cet homme" is one of my favorite french police movie of the beginning of the 50's, and not only thanks to Bernard Blier.
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dbdumonteil5 July 2009Georges Lampin was a rather ambitious director,at least in the first part of his career ,"Suivez Cet Homme" being his last real attempt at an original work.His Russian adaptations were too French -although Lampin was born in Saint Petersburg" ;"L'Eternel Conflit" was Lampin at his most ambitious ,but after a brilliant beginning ,it sank into the banality of melodrama;"Le Paradis Des Pilotes Perdus" was a disaster movie long before the seventies trend but the lack of means was obvious;"Les Anciens De Saint Loup' was a "Disparus De Saint Agil" for grown ups but a certain misogyny made the movie a bit unpalatable ,in spite of a great cast.One should add that his segment of "Retour A la Vie" was the weakest link of this collective work.
"Suivez Cet Homme" might be his best movie;its construction is bizarre :two segments,linked by the presence of a cop ,played by Bernard Blier as some kind of Commissaire Maigret,who goes to work every day and buys "Rustica" magazine at the railway station.
Segment One:in a seedy house on the wrong side of town ,in a place with mildewed walls ,there lives a pawnbroker (ideally played by Suzy Prim).Her apartment is packed with valuable stuff,every thing seems to tell a story.One day,she's poisoned and there are two suspects : her husband she left and who,short of the readies ,wanted her to give him some dough; a depraved person ,a girl who used to work for her ,actually her lover (Lampin ,fourteen years before Chabrol's "Les Biches" ,depicted an ambiguous relationship between two women);the girl is actually a victim, a superbly portrayed character (Andrée Clément was a first class actress who disappeared too soon).Because of the presence of a physician,the cop uses a tensiometer as a lie detector . This whodunit is really well made.
Segment two: a jeweler is arrested by two cops in uniform but it seems to be a miscarriage of justice ;it's all the more strange since soon after we see the two policemen stealing jewels from the shop ;the scene is particularly successful:the ticking of all the clocks creates an incredible nervous tension.If the first segment was psychological whodunit,this one is more thriller ,with spooky moments ,notably in the hut where the two criminals get rid of an undesirable witness or in this village near decay where the killer strangles his victim to the sound of a church organ.
"Suivez Cet Homme" is a really good work,but it's perhaps too bad that the director did not try to link his two segments which are both interesting but are actually two different movies.