Robert Hossein was primarily renowned as an actor, but he also carved out a substantial career as a talented director. This new box set collects three of his best directorial efforts for their U.S. Blu-ray premieres. Interestingly, although he worked throughout the French New Wave years, his films eschew any artsy touches in favor of a straightforward, classic approach to drama.
Buy Wicked Games: Three Films by Robert Hossein Blu-rayThe Wicked Go to Hell (1955) tracks the daring prison break of two suspected snitches (Henri Vidal and Serge Regianni), fleeing captivity before they get stitches. It’s an intriguing set-up because we don’t know the identity of the snitch, or indeed if either of them are the culprit, with the pair establishing an uneasy alliance with a healthy distrust of each other. Once on the lam, the pair eventually come across a remote beach hut occupied by a comely young model (Marina Vlady, soon to be Hossein’s actual wife), adding lust to the pair’s already tenuous partnership as they decide to hide out there with their beguiling new hostage. Although the prison escape is thrilling, it can’t hold a candle to the searing sexual tension of their beachside idyll.
Nude in a White Car (1958) earns its title in the first reel when a handsome hitchhiker (Hossein) is picked up by a sexy blonde who promptly seduces him before kicking him to the curb, sideswiping him with the car and presumably disappearing forever. Unfortunately for the blonde, Hossein’s character is driven to find his lover/attacker, shortly tracking the vehicle to a lavish villa housing two sisters (Vlady again and her real-life sister, Odile Versois) who both deny being his target. This is where things really get wild, because the sisters invite the unemployed stranger to run their store, live with them, and both make passes at him. Hossein invites us to guess which sister is the attacker and unravel the true nature of the odd sisterhood, muddying the waters by making one of them an apparent paraplegic and stringing us along in Hitchcockian style to the rewarding grand reveal.
The Taste of Violence (1961) takes a political turn when insurgents kidnap a corrupt dictator’s daughter and escort her back to him in the hopes of collecting a massive ransom to fund their revolution. Hossein stars again as the principal rebel, this time opposite Giovanna Ralli as the daughter. The film is primarily a French Western road trip, as the rebels move across the sun-baked landscape with their hostage and she gradually succumbs to Stockholm syndrome as she falls under Hossein’s spell. The story drags, lacking the intrigue of the other two films, but it’s easily the best-looking production, with expansive natural vistas shot with stunning cinematography.
All three films have received 2K restorations by original studio Gaumont, with The Taste of Violence boasting a particularly spotless restoration. The films are all filmed in luminous black and white, but vary in aspect ratio from 1.37:1 for the first, 1.66:1 for the 2nd, and a surprising 2.35:1 for the third, only because it’s odd to see a non-color film in that ultra-widescreen format. Sound is presented in original uncompressed mono, with minimal hiss and no discernible flaws.
Plentiful expansive bonus features expound on Hossein’s legacy, highlighted by a 2014 interview with Vlady where she speaks openly of their intimate personal and working relationship. Elsewhere, there’s a new half-hour appreciation of Hossein and his work, a newly created 15-minute making of featurette featuring archival interviews with Hossein, and a half-hour interview with an author discussing the Zapata Western subgenre and The Taste of Violence. A 15-minute visual essay about the evolution of the French femme fatale seems like overkill, but may be welcome by newcomers to classic French cinema. Trailers and a limited edition booklet round out the substantial package, with each film getting its own disc but spread among two standard cases in a super-sturdy slipcase.
