"Spotlight On A Murderer" is a second rate detective story with a first rate French cast. The story deals with a count whose only asset seems to be his massive stone castle. Top billed Pierre Brasseur plays the count and he has a hit and run part, appearing for a total of maybe three minutes and not doing much besides taking a seat in a concealed room and dying.
For me, the big plus of this movie is Dany Saval's performance as the girlfriend of one of the potential heirs of the count. She has a real personality. Maurice Jarre composed the music for this movie and the score is blah, no match to his score for 1964's "Weekend at Dunkirk". Jarre later married Saval, in 1965 and, when they split two years later, he gave her the rights to his movie score for "Doctor Zhivago" as a divorce settlement. A great deal for her.
As to this movie, I watched the Arrow Blu-ray disc of the movie, a Gaumont restoration that has excellent image quality. At the end, when the killer is on the run across across the castle grounds, Edwige (Marianne Koch) tells Saval's movie boyfriend to shoot the killer in the leg. A shot through a high tower window to a moving target at least 150 feet away using a smooth bore single shot antique pistol. With a crowd of visitors to the castle next to the target. Naturally, the shot hits the killer in the leg.
If your time is limited, try to see "Weekend At Dunkirk" instead of this run of the mill mystery. Maurice Jarre's score for that movie is great and director Henri Verneuil was on a roll in the 1960s directing movies, hitting his peak with 1969's "The Sicilian Clan".
For me, the big plus of this movie is Dany Saval's performance as the girlfriend of one of the potential heirs of the count. She has a real personality. Maurice Jarre composed the music for this movie and the score is blah, no match to his score for 1964's "Weekend at Dunkirk". Jarre later married Saval, in 1965 and, when they split two years later, he gave her the rights to his movie score for "Doctor Zhivago" as a divorce settlement. A great deal for her.
As to this movie, I watched the Arrow Blu-ray disc of the movie, a Gaumont restoration that has excellent image quality. At the end, when the killer is on the run across across the castle grounds, Edwige (Marianne Koch) tells Saval's movie boyfriend to shoot the killer in the leg. A shot through a high tower window to a moving target at least 150 feet away using a smooth bore single shot antique pistol. With a crowd of visitors to the castle next to the target. Naturally, the shot hits the killer in the leg.
If your time is limited, try to see "Weekend At Dunkirk" instead of this run of the mill mystery. Maurice Jarre's score for that movie is great and director Henri Verneuil was on a roll in the 1960s directing movies, hitting his peak with 1969's "The Sicilian Clan".