The Night Caller

A French thriller set in Lyon. Letellier is a police commissioner. Some years earlier he chased a bank robber onto a rooftop and the man got away, and a hostage died. He has not stopped looking for him since. Then a woman falls from a window. Before it happened she was getting telephone calls from a man who called himself a prophet and told her she deserved to die for the life she led. The calls continue with other women. The man is not asking for money and not hiding; he is preaching. From there the film runs two hunts at once. Letellier is officially on the killer and privately still on the robber, and his superiors keep telling him to choose. What the narrative is interested in is not the puzzle but obsession: the detective and the killer are both men who cannot stop, and the film puts them side by side without saying so. The set pieces are the reason to watch. There is a long chase across the rooftops of Lyon, a sequence on the roof of a moving underground train, and a descent by rope from a helicopter onto a building. The stunts were performed by the lead actor himself rather than by doubles, which was known at the time and part of why the film was a hit. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Letellier. Charles Denner plays the killer and Adalberto Maria Merli the robber. Henri Verneuil directed. The score is by Ennio Morricone. Who it is for: anyone who wants 1970s French policing and real stunt work. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to how the film treats its women characters; the killer's view of them is given a lot of screen time.