Cat and Mouse

“As Inspector Lechat ('the cat,' as high-school French would have it), Serge Reggiani is warmingly rumpled, worldly wise and roguish, bringing to mind Norman Mailer in one of his pixilated, lap-dog moods. Reggiani is able to make Lechat endearing even when the inspector casually helps himself to a few thousand francs of stolen loot. Michèle Morgan is similarly engaging as the inspector's suspect and eventual romantic obsession, Madame Richard, whose husband (Jean-Pierre Aumont, briefly) dies early in the film, taking a number of very valuable paintings with him. Lechat is certain that the wife killed the husband for the insurance money and that the missing paintings are only a ruse. When he attempts to prove that Madame could have zoomed from a Paris movie house to the scene of the crime and back again within two hours — so as to have the movie as an alibi — the film takes off on an exhilarating joy ride.” – Tom Shales, The Washington Post