Fear Over the City | |
---|---|
Directed by | Henri Verneuil |
Written by | Henri Verneuil Jean Laborde Francis Veber |
Based on | original story by Verneuil |
Produced by | Jacques Juranville |
Starring | Jean-Paul Belmondo |
Cinematography | Jean Penzer |
Edited by | Pierre Gillette |
Music by | Ennio Morricone |
Production companies | Cerito Films Mondial Televisione Film |
Distributed by | AMLF |
Release date |
|
Running time | 125 minutes |
Countries | France Italy |
Language | French |
Budget | $2.7 million |
Box office | $29.6 million [1] |
Fear Over the City (French: Peur sur la ville [2] ) is a 1975 French crime film directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. It was the first time Belmondo played a police officer. [3]
It was released in the United States and the United Kingdom as The Night Caller.
Policeman Jean Letellier is under pressure, because the infamous gangster Marcucci escaped from him publicly. Moreover, during the pursuit an innocent bystander was killed by a stray bullet. Letellier is investigated for having fired the deadly bullet.
Before Letellier is cleared, a serial killer begins to murder young women, each time leaving a weird message at the site of crime. He calls himself "Minos", referring to the Divine Comedy. The murderer always declares he had punished his victims for what he considers their impure life style.
While Letellier still has no trace of Minos, he comes across Marcucci's current whereabouts. Just as before, Marcucci tries to escape in a spectacular manner when Letellier confronts him. But this time Marcucci dies in the course of action.
Marcucci's death is no relief for Letellier who is now publicly accused of having neglected the Minos case in favour of settling his personal feud with his late archenemy.
Minos keeps on murdering and leaving provoking hints until Letellier can identify him. The serial killer can only scarcely elude Letellier, who chases him over the roofs of Paris. His next coup is to take hostages in a skyscraper. Letellier decides he has had it and goes airborne. From a flying helicopter he jumps through the window into the flat and puts Minos down.
The film was the second most popular film at the French box office in 1975, after The Towering Inferno . [4] It was Belmondo's most popular movie since Le Casse (1972). It was also popular in Italy and Germany. [1] [5]
It was released in the USA and the UK as The Night Caller.
The New York Times said "it seems to be two completely different movies, neither of them up to much." [6] The Los Angeles Times thought the action sequences "keep an otherwise routine film entertaining." [7] Time Out said Belmondo is "piling stunt on daredevil stunt and risking his neck for a particularly silly story", and "desperately little of the film's energy" goes into the plot. [8]
Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo was a French actor. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward, frequently portraying police officers and criminals in action thriller films. His best known credits include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Borsalino (1970), and The Professional (1981). An undisputed box-office champion like Louis de Funès and Alain Delon of the same period, Belmondo attracted nearly 160 million spectators in his 50-year career. Between 1969 and 1982 he played four times in the most popular films of the year in France: The Brain (1969), Fear Over the City (1975), Animal (1977), Ace of Aces (1982), being surpassed on this point only by Louis de Funès.
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Henri Verneuil was a French-Armenian playwright and filmmaker, who made a successful career in France. He was nominated for Oscar and Palme d'Or awards, and won Locarno International Film Festival, Edgar Allan Poe Awards, French Legion of Honor, Golden Globe Award, French National Academy of Cinema and Honorary Cesar awards.
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The Night Caller may refer to:
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The Loner is a 1987 French crime film directed and co-written by Jacques Deray, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Malo, Michel Beaune and Pierre Vernier. It was the last in a series of commercial action films made by Belmondo, which started with 1975's The Night Caller and made him a powerhouse at the continental European box office.
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