A fabulous performance from Jeanne Moreau makes it easy to forgive all of the plot holes and idiosyncrasies of this dark thriller, called a Hitchcock homage, but that's too easy a comparison as I saw other influences involved including 40's film noir, a genre of many themes and moods. Truffaut may have been influenced by certain Hitchcockian styles or photographic methods, but not all thrillers are copies of the master of suspense. It's too easy to choose a certain filmmaker's method, but it's not always accurate.
Moreau isn't exactly your typical black widow. It's easy to understand her grief and anger, widowed on her wedding day because of the stupidest of accidental shootings (I found that revelation ridiculously set up), but the set-up for each of her five murders are fascinatingly presented, one in particular involving someone locked in a small stairwell closet really horrifying for claustrophobics. The use of a 45 rpm record as a major prop was certainly unique as well. But the time gap between murders isn't always smartly planned, so the film isn't as clever as they initially thought it was. Easy to see why Truffaut considered this a disappointment even though there's a lot of ingenuity scattered among the missed opportunities.
Moreau isn't exactly your typical black widow. It's easy to understand her grief and anger, widowed on her wedding day because of the stupidest of accidental shootings (I found that revelation ridiculously set up), but the set-up for each of her five murders are fascinatingly presented, one in particular involving someone locked in a small stairwell closet really horrifying for claustrophobics. The use of a 45 rpm record as a major prop was certainly unique as well. But the time gap between murders isn't always smartly planned, so the film isn't as clever as they initially thought it was. Easy to see why Truffaut considered this a disappointment even though there's a lot of ingenuity scattered among the missed opportunities.