La Menace

La Menace
Directed byAlain Corneau
Screenplay by
Story by
  • Alain Corneau
  • Daniel Boulanger[1]
Produced byJean-Pierre Martel
Léo L. Fuchs
Richard Hellman
Starring
CinematographyPierre-William Glenn[1]
Edited byHenri Lanoë[1]
Music byGerry Mulligan[1]
Production
companies
  • Les Productions du Daunou
  • Viaduc Productions
  • Citéca Productions
  • Canafox
Distributed byParafrance
Release dates
  • 21 September 1977 (1977-09-21) (France)
  • 4 November 1977 (1977-11-04) (Canada)
Running time
117 minutes[1]
Countries
  • France
  • Canada
LanguageFrench
Budget11 million francs

La Menace (lit. 'The Threat')[1] is a 1977 film directed by Alain Corneau and starring Yves Montand, Carole Laure, and Marie Dubois.

Plot

Henri Savin has managed a trucking company for his lover, Dominique Montlaur, for many years. Now he is planning to leave her for Julie Manet, the woman he has made pregnant, and Dominique is hysterical. She first threatens suicide, then shows up at a meeting of Henri and Julie. Dominique tries everything she can think of to break Henri and Julie apart, to no avail. Frustrated in her efforts, she jumps off a cliff and dies. Savin insists that he and Julie lie to the police about the encounter, although Dominique's death was a suicide and therefore they had no direct hand in it. Detective Waldeck investigates Dominique's death.

Cast

The cast of La Menace is as follows:

Production

Pre-production

Following the release of Police Python 357 (1976), Yves Montand agreed to work with director Alain Corneau again and the two agreed to shoot a film inspired by the assassination of François Renaud. They halted these plans when Yves Boisset's film Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff (1977) beat them to it.[1]

This led Corneau and Boulanger, who he worked with on Police Python 357 to devise several stories until one developed in what would become La Menace. In the film, they made Montand a truck driver, due to his similar role Henri-Georges Clouzot's The Wages of Fear (1953). The film went under several titles during development including Flash-back, M..., and Les Violents (lit. 'The Violent Ones').[1] Coreneau said the film was inspired by Fritz Lang's Beyond a Resonable Doubt (1956).[2]

Carole Laure was a Quebec actress who at the time had never acted in a French film before. She was cast after Corneau had seen her in Gilles Carle's Normande (1975) when it screened at the Cannes Film Festival.[3]

While initially set to start filming in January 1977, the financial backing for La Menace was on hold due to financial problems. Les Productions du Daunoui replaced André Génovès's Films La Boétie. France Film, the Canadian co-producer also withdrew from the project leading to Canafox taking its place.[4] The film was made with a budget of 11 million francs and was an international co-production between three Paris-based production companies (Les Productions du Daunou , Viaduc Productions, Citéca Productions) with 30% of funding coming from the Montreal-based Canafox.[1][4]

Filming

Filming began in April 1977. It was first shot in Paris and then moved to Bordeaux and Médoc and ended in Canada on July 8.[4]

Release

La Menace was released in France on September 21, 1977 and had 1,346,966 spectators in France.[1][5] It was released on November 4, 1977 in Canada.[1]

Reception

In French Thrillers of the 1970s: Volume I, Crime Films, the authors said that critics were divided on La Menace.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Curti & Lafond 2026, p. 295.
  2. ↑ Curti & Lafond 2026, p. 297.
  3. ↑ Curti & Lafond 2026, pp. 295–296.
  4. 1 2 3 Curti & Lafond 2026, p. 296.
  5. 1 2 Curti & Lafond 2026, p. 299.

Sources

  • Curti, Roberto; Lafond, Frank (2026). French Thrillers of the 1970s: Volume I, Crime Films. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-8681-3. LCCN 2025048366.


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