125 rue Montmartre

No good deed goes unpunished in Gilles Grangier’s 125 rue Montmartre, a late French noir in which the fantastically reliable Lino Ventura plays a kindhearted everyman wearing classic Chuck Taylor All-Stars on his feet who helps save a suicidal man from the River Seine and is rewarded by getting framed for murder. A simple newspaper deliveryman taking a break by the river one day, Pascal Cazalis (Ventura) jumps in the water to save Didier Barrachet (Robert Hirsch), a mentally unstable, anxiety-wrought man who believes his wife is trying to have him committed to a mental asylum to steal his fortune. The generous Pascal offers to help Barrachet in his plight, hosting him in his tiny, seventh-floor walkup apartment and indulging his delusions and nightmares for somewhat inexplicable reasons. After Barrachet pleads with Pascal to help him retrieve a large sum of money from his mansion, the two men break in silently during the night only for Pascal to find a dead body on the floor and Barrachet suddenly nowhere in sight. Police descend on the home, arrest Pascal, and introduce him to the lady of the house, Catherine Barrachet (Andréa Parisy) whose actual husband happens to be the stiff on the floor. The rest of the film follows Pascal’s efforts to get out of this mess, culminating in an elaborate chase around a circus tent and fairgrounds. Dora Doll plays Pascal’s occasional bedmate, and Jean Desailly plays Commissaire Dodelot, the chief investigator who instinctively doubts Pascal’s culpability. Based on a novel by André Gillois, who collaborated on the script, the film’s “wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time” premise may not be unusual in noir, but Grangier elevates the yarn largely through casting tough guy Ventura, an unexpected choice for such a naïve character.