Tonight's Movie: Vertigo for a Killer (1970) - A Kino Lorber Blu-ray Review

My recent viewing of French film noir led me to try a new release from Kino Lorber, VERTIGO FOR A KILLER (1970).

Known as VERTIGE POUR UN TUEUR in its native France, the film interested me as it stars Marcel Bozzuffi, who appeared in SPEAKING OF MURDER (1957) and MAIGRET SEES RED (1963). One of Bozzuffi's best-known films is THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), in which he was prominent in the supporting cast.

The movie costars Michel Constantin, who was also in MAIGRET SEES RED.

VERTIGO FOR A KILLER begins with striking opening credits, and soon thereafter a beautiful shot of the exterior of a Paris Metro station.

The tranquility is soon interrupted by an attempted mob hit on Rene (Constantin), but the contracted killer, Marc (Bozzuffi), deliberately misses the shot as Rene is his friend.

The gangsters are very, very unhappy with Marc, but he gets away after killing one of the men.

Marc then "borrows" a body from a morgue and fakes a suicide with an exploded car, but the mob doesn't buy it, and it's soon on to an impressive cat and mouse chase sequence through the Nice airport.

This section of the film was very exciting, although I'm still not certain what Marc was attempting to accomplish chasing a plane, unless he wanted to be arrested to be protected from the mob.

At the airport Sylvie (Sylva Koscina) recognizes Marc from a crime magazine cover and brings him to her home, pretending she's interested in a tryst; Marc, needing a place to hide, goes along with it.

As it turns out, Sylvie has plans of her own for Marc. But who else is hiding in her home? Before all is said and done, let's just say nothing goes well for anyone involved.

This is a moderately entertaining 90 minutes directed by Jean-Pierre Desagnat, who cowrote the screenplay with a trio of other contributors. The movie starts well, with the viewer rooting for the hitman antihero as he's tracked by the ruthless gang. I rather enjoyed it until the point in the film where Marc meets Sylvie.

The movie's second half, unfortunately, gradually peters out, as the viewer tries to untangle exactly what Sylvie is up to; by the time this film fades out to shots of bodies and spaghetti Western style music, it all feels a bit pointless.

The movie was filmed by Roland Dantigny. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray print, from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative, looks very good, including filming in some interesting Mediterranean locations.

Extras consist of a commentary track by Max Allan Collins and Heath Holland and a gallery of half a dozen trailers for other films available from Kino Lorber.

Ironically, although I wasn't especially enthused about the film, I'm curious to listen to the track, which among other things might help me understand a bit more about the somewhat baffling second-half plotting. I met Heath at last year's Lone Pine Film Festival, so I feel confident the track will be worthwhile.

Although the film's final sequences left me dissatisfied, kudos, as always, to Kino Lorber for making a relatively rare film available to check out in a good-looking print.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

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