The Sleeping Car Murders

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🎙️ EPISODE 467: 05.16.22 For the second week in a row, the gods of TRUE RANDOM have sent us a 60s film from Europe. This one, a noir-adjacent murder mystery by the literal hyphenate Costa-Gavras, here in his directorial debut. C-G is probably best known for Z (1969) which I have yet to S E E. SORRY. This one is confusing if not down right Scooby-Doo silly at times, but I found it to be mostly charming and entertaining enough. By far my favorite character was this proto-incel red herring with a sloppy wet combover; the strongest parts of the movie are his unintentionally hilarious creepy monologues...

Too bad he gets killed in the first act. Everything culminates with a typically kooky ending but it all pretty much comes together even if the lengths they go to connect the dots are barely believable. This is all via a lovely 2016 restoration, and its strengths lie in the aesthetics. Clearly Cosa-Gavras is a talent. Add yet another director to the list I need to take a deep dive on.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 466 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 468 ⫸

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The Sleeping Car Murders (also known as The Sleeping Car Murder, French title: Compartiment tueurs) is a 1965 French mystery film directed by Costa-Gavras from the novel by Sébastien Japrisot. It stars Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Michel Piccoli, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Allégret, Jacques Perrin, Charles Denner and Pascale Roberts. This film was the first movie for Costa-Gavras, to be followed later by other, more politically-oriented work. It was released on August 30, 1965.