A car pulls up near a metro stop on the streets of Paris. A hitman screws a silencer onto his gun. The men he is with tell him he must execute his target before the man gets on the train, or all is lost. The hitman gets out of the car, aims, shoots, and misses. The target escapes. The other men can’t believe it. Their guy never misses. Turns out the target was the hitman’s friend, and he intentionally missed. The boss is none too pleased. He puts a hit on the hitman, forcing him to go on the run.
Buy Vertigo for a KillerVertigo for a Killer is a French film from director Jean-Pierre Desagnat that is part film noir, part 1970s thriller, and part Hitchcockian suspense film. It isn’t nearly as good as that sounds, but it has enough going for it to keep me interested, and this new Blu-ray from Kino Lorber makes a nice addition to my Euro-thriller collection.
This hitman is Marc (Marcel Bozzuffi), and at first, he tries to fake his death. He pays a guy at the morgue for an unclaimed stiff that looks relatively like him, puts the corpse in his suit, then puts it in his car, douses it with gasoline, and sends it flying over a cliff.
The plan might have worked if it weren’t for Marc being spotted by some goons at the airport. This leads to a pretty thrilling chase through the airport and out on the tarmac. A pretty blonde thinks he’s been following her, and since she’s just dropped her husband off, she figures he might be good for a good time.
She’s called Sylvie (Sylva Koscina), and she takes him back to her lavish villa in the country. But once there, we realize she’s not so naive. She knows he’s a killer and on the run, and she’s got plans for him. There is someone else in the house, but the film is cagey about showing his face. Even when she gets naked and has a little sexy fun time with him, he’s obscured behind her body. Which is weird because it isn’t hard to figure out who he is. If he is someone we haven’t seen before, then there is no point in not showing his face. And the only other people we know in this film are the crooks and her husband. So there is very little mystery to this ridiculous bit of cinematic trickery.
Sylvie needs to keep Marc around for a day or two, but he’s ready to flee. He’s also got a gun, and she can’t make him stay while he’s got that. She tries seducing him. She pretends the police knock on her door. She does everything to persuade him to stay. And he does. But he’s not stupid. He knows something is up; he just can’t quite figure out what it is she really wants. It probably has something to do with the corpse the guy keeps dragging around.
The film tries to be mysterious and suspenseful, but it never quite succeeds. It is a little too obvious with what it’s doing. That doesn’t make it uninteresting. I still enjoyed what it was doing even if I knew where it was going. The film seems to recognize this because in the third act the bad guys show up, leading to a pretty good chase sequence.
There is an admission I have to make. I watched this while rocking a gnarly sinus headache. That made my viewing less than ideal. There were a few times I had to rewind it a bit and watch a scene again because I realized I had no idea what had just happened. I do think that is partly the film’s fault because it certainly doesn’t hold your hand and explain things. But also my headache made it hard to concentrate. I suspect it will go up in my estimation when I watch it again. As it is, I still liked it quite a bit. There is a reason it has slipped into obscurity and isn’t considered a classic. Yet, I’m also thrilled to see it getting this release, as it deserves wider attention.
Kino Lorber presents Vertigo for a Killer with a new 4K restoration from the camera negative by Studio Canal. Extras include a very entertaining audio commentary from mystery writer and filmmaker Max Allan Collins with film historian and host of the Cereal at Midnight podcast, Heath Holland.
