THE STRANGLER (1970)

One night, young Emile is left sulking when he is sent to his bedroom so he puts on his white scarf and sneaks out his window, winding up at a nearby train station. A man befriends him and as they walk down a sidewalk, the man notices a sad looking woman walking toward them. He takes Emile's scarf and casually strangles her. Years later, a grown-up Emile (Jacques Perrin, pictured) has taken up murdering lonely women (or women he thinks are lonely) with his white scarf. Inspector Dangret, posing as a reporter, goes on TV to appeal to the killer to come forward and talk to him. Anna, a young woman who has just gone through a breakup, volunteers herself as bait for Dangret. Finally, a young ruffian follows Emile about and, after the murders, robs the victim. Often referred to as a giallo, this does have that look and feel, but it has very little sex or explicit violence. It's not horror and it's not a whodunnit. I think the director, Paul Vecchiali, thinks it's a psychological thriller (a whydunnit), though there is very little insight into why any of the characters do what they do here. The movie reminds me of PEEPING TOM which also has the central character of a man who kills women because of a childhood trauma. But TOM has an intensity, with scenes of almost unbearable tension, that this film completely lacks. Some viewers have given this film a queer reading as Emile's killings don't give him a sexual thrill, and his relationship with the cop is the strongest bond in the movie, but I have yet to see a truly coherent theory of its queerness put forward. It may be there but it doesn't have much impact on the narrative or on audience reception unless we want to buy the 'homosexual as villain' trope. For the record, Julien Guiomar is Dangret, Eva Simonet is Anna, and Paul Barge is the thief. The visual style is probably the most appealing thing about the movie. I also must mention a strange scene in a beatnik club where a bad singer (deliberately bad, I have to assume) sings a bad song while chorus girls drape themselves over the club tables. It makes quite a tableau. [Criterion Channel]