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Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau - Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (21st May 2025). |
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The Film
 "The hardboiled genre of crime fiction evolved from the mystery crime novels of the early 20th century - closely associated with the US pulp magazines, these cynical and unsentimental stories of desperate criminals and social corruption were both influenced by and an influence on the golden era of film noir. "As their popularity waned in the US, the hardboiled genre remained hugely popular and relevant throughout the 1960s and 70s in France, thanks to the successful Série Noire imprint and a succession of new translations. In Alain Corneau's early films, he sought to continue the noir tradition in his native France, and was both directly and indirectly inspired by titans of hardboiled genre, including Kenneth Fearing and Jim Thompson. A heady combination of classic noir and 70s grit, these three darkly thrilling films are vastly underrated and important works in the canon of crime cinema." César (Best Editing): Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte (winner) and Best Music: Georges Delerue (nominee) - César Awards, 1977 Police Python 376: Inspector Marc Ferrot (The Wages of Fear's Yves Montand) is not just a lone wolf cop bringing in criminals in daring unauthorized solo operations, his entire life is one of almost monastic solitude until he meets Sylvia (The Conformist's Stefania Sandrelli), a beautiful young boutique shop keeper who insists on keeping her life a mystery while he is courting her. Ferrot cannot help but "pursue" her even as he promises not to ask questions, suspecting that she is trying to end things with another partner. What he does not realize is that the other man in her life is her benefactor/lover and his police commissioner Ganay (Le Samouraï's François Périer) whose carries on his relationship with her in secret apart from the approval of his ailing wife Thérèse (Les diaboliques' Simone Signoret). Although Sylvia wishes to divest herself of Ganay, she is torn by the obligation she feels for him turning her life around and becomes frustrated by his seeming lack of possessiveness and stated concern for her happiness, provoking him into a fit of anger in which he bludgeons her to death with an ashtray. Ganay cleans everything up and just misses Ferrot's arrival but sees the light turn on in Sylvia's apartment and realizes that it must be Sylvia's other man. Ganay confesses everything to his wife including his plans to turn himself in but she urges him to wait since there is nothing connecting him to Sylvia and her apartment and there may be a more likely suspect in her new man. Ferrot does not discover Sylvia's body when he visits and is shocked next morning to learn that he has been assigned to her murder by Ganay. As Ferrot and his young assistants Ménard (Malpertuis' Mathieu Carrière) and Abadie (Cross of Iron's Vadim Glowna) investigate, Ferrot discovers just how much of his secret relationship with Sylvia has been observed by witnesses making him a more likely suspect if ever identified, but he also realizes upon learning more about Sylvia's past as a victim of child abuse and prosecuted for prostitution in both Italy and Paris that someone must have been responsible for turning her life around in the last five years of good behavior and business ownership. Whereas his assistants are looking for an abusive possible pimp for a high-class "whore" Ferrot happens upon a single photograph overlooked in the investigation of her apartment. As Ferrot goes to extremes to not be seen by the witnesses, Ganay and his wife have been monitoring progress on the investigation and plotting to implicate the other man in Sylvia's life when identified and realize that they may have to resort to more drastic measures when they discover his identity. The second feature film of Alain Corneau (All the Mornings of the World) – who had previously assisted political filmmaker Costa-Gavras (The Confession) – Police Python 357 is not a Dirty Harry-esque film despite the title, nor it it a cozy policier despite its milieu; rather, it is the first of his films to embody the spirit of the série noire, the term coined from the Gallimard imprint that brought American and British crime novels to the French public, the term taking on the same pulp significance as the Italian giallo or the German krimi as literary genres turned into filmic ones. The film is not a whodunit nor is the suspense confined to whether Ferrot will find out the identity of the other man in Sylvia's life before he is caught as the wrong man. The viewer also waits for the moment when Ganay realizes who his rival is, and the viewer even learns through his wife's observation that he is getting a certain degree of enjoyment out of watching his best cop investigate his own crime. Ferrot's young partners are not stupid men but they have a perfectly logical reason to believe that they are only looking for one man and to see stubbornness in Ferrot's insisting that there are two men without explanation and to perceive his avoiding seeing the witnesses or visiting the crime scene – insisting Sylvia's belongings be brought to the police station (although this stripping down of her apartment later helps him when he is searching for anything not just overlooked but actually hidden) – as carelessness or disinterest with both men respecting their superior but not loyal to him, voicing frustration to Ganay without actually going behind Ferrot's back. Ganay has warned Ferrot against his lone wolf tendencies, but the way they extend to his private life is partially responsible for how he is perceived as an unknown suspect while they are completely necessary for him to not prove his innocence but find the real killer while erasing his involvement in Sylvia's life. The most compelling element of the film is Ferrot himself who is first introduced in a stark, bare apartment making his own bullets intercut with preparing and cleaning up after a meal. At first, he seems like one of Schrader's "man in a room" protagonists but he is less than that. He is not a man honing his spiritual and intellectual interior but one reducing himself to a weapon so that he is almost one with his gun. His is not an idealist whose lone wolf attitude is born of a cynicism about the system, he is an orphan who has always looked after himself (which is also the reason he has no one to vouch for his whereabouts or his character). When he stresses the importance of the hidden photograph of Sylvia, he states "it's a memory. And memories take two," and his destruction of anything that connects him to Sylvia from her gifts to his own belongings like his shoes that left a trail or his one glove when the other was dropped near the scene to his actions once he learns that he will be forced to attend the meeting with all of the witnesses to construct an identikit for the man they all saw constitute a near-complete erasure of himself. Just as his surname earned him the childhood nickname "Iron Feet" at the orphanage, most of the characters outside the police force are mentioned at least once by surname but primarily by descriptive terms like "the dog man" (And Soon the Darkness' Claude Bertrand) for the witnesses who was walking his dog the night of the killing, "the cat lady" (The Things of Life's Gabrielle Doulcet) who was feeding the neighborhood strays when Ferrot walked by and dropped his glove, "the pen seller" (Alice Reichen) from whom Sylvia bought a gift for Ferrot, "the ticket collector" (Georges-Fréderic Dehlen) at the train station where Sylvia (pretending to be coming to Orléans from Paris) meets Ferrot, or the pimp "The Alsatian" (Helltrain's Tony Rödel) whose known punishment for his prostitutes gives Ferrot the idea for concealing his identity (while unintentionally making the former the prime suspect in his attack); however, although as unknown to Ferrot as he is to them, the chief antagonist is not the murderer Ganay but his wife. She says she will not stand a scandal when it comes to Ganay's cheating – hence her involvement in keeping it secret even as he spends money to keep Sylvia – but seems genuinely concerned for her husband and his mental state when he confesses his deed. As spiritually-tired as she is physically, Thérèse's response to her husband's "l hit her. l don't know what got into me," is "That phrase: you've heard it so many times and never tried to understand." Montand's wife at the time, Signoret only shares one scene with him but it is the most powerful one emotionally, draining both the viewer and Ferrot whose heroic final deed is not a conscious act of redemption but one of an attempted self-sacrifice when he feels that he has nothing more to lose. The photography of Étienne Becker (One Deadly Summer) is attractive but not particularly distinctive, while the score of Georges Delerue (Contempt) possesses the same kind of tragic yearning as his score for producer Albina du Boisrouvray's previous film Andrzej Zulawski's That Most Important Thing: Love (with which it shares production designer Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko).  Palme d'Or: Alain Corneau (nominated) - Cannes Film Festival, 1979 César (Best Actor): Patrick Dewaere (nominated), Best Supporting Actor: Bernard Blier (nominated), Best Supporting Actress: Myriam Boyer (nominated), Best Editing: Thierry Derocles (nominated), and Best Screenplay, Original or Adaptation: Alain Corneau and Georges Perec (nominated) - César Awards, 1980 Série noire: Franck Poupart (Hotel America's Patrick Dewaere) is a door-to-door salesman for a shady goods company that seems to carry everything for kitchen goods (domestic and industrial) to quilted robes to heavy duty padlocks. He turns up at a rambling old house in a run-down part of the city to shake down Andreas Tikides (Executive Decision's Andreas Katsulas) who is delinquent on his payments only to learn from its elderly owner (Mortelle randonnée's Jeanne Herviale) that Tikides has taken off without doing the labor for which she paid him in advance. She directs Franck to Tikides nearby hangout but also makes her niece Mona (Betty's Marie Trintignant) available when he makes a crude remark about the girl's attractiveness after sighting her through an upstairs window watching him. No sooner does he enter the house ostensibly to sell the girl a robe but also to seduce her than Mona strips off her clothes. Flustered, Franck dresses her and makes conversation, promising to come back after dealing with Tikides who she claims has raped her. Franck makes off with four hundred francs from Tikides' boxing trainer. When Tikides gives chase, Franck proves he is scrappy and can be violent when pressed, leading to a truce between the two. Things come to a head between Franck and his wife Jeanne (Un Coeur en Hiver's Myriam Boyer) when he comes home; him dissatisfied with the way she keeps house poorly and she tiring of the string of dives they have lived in, the lack of money, and the lack of excitement in their lives. She walks out on him after trashing the house and shredding his clothes. Franck has also lied to his boss Staplin (The Stranger's Bernard Blier) about not finding Tikides and pockets the money save that which he gives the man claiming it to be from a cash sale; however, Staplin has noticed various "discrepancies" and threatens Franck with jail time if he does not pay off the arbitrary figure of 1,500 francs, carrying through with the threat with the help of crooked police inspector Marcel (Charlie Farnel). Franck sits in jail for days until Marcel suddenly releases him and Staplin informs him that his wife paid off his debt. He discovers, however, that the wife in question is actually young Mona who tells him that her seemingly impoverished aunt has been squirreling money away and offers him ten million francs to kill her aunt. Franck comes up with the idea of setting up Tikides to make it look like the old woman was killed during a burglary. Things, of course, do not go smoothly as Marcel realizes Mona has lied about Tikides raping her, Staplin seems to suspect a connection between the deaths of two of his clients, and Jeanne comes back into his life. Based on the novel by America's last noir author Jim Thompson titled "A Hell of a Woman" – retitled "Cliques and Cesspools" by the French publisher – Série noire transports the action to France and trades the darkness of noir for a sculpted squalidness under overcast skies and sickly lighting (the film was shot on fast Fuji film with a hint of a green cast) that seems to represent the dead end worldview of the character (only after his wife leaves does their apartment look tidy only for the mess to encroach upon her return). The familiar noir story is cast with the usual sleazy caricatures and is brought to life solely by Dewaere's neurotic characterization in which he works of nervous energy by listening and dancing to music, has little mental or physical patience for other characters attempts at subtle needling, and is prone to sudden violence that it is completely believable he would kill in a rage – he accepts that Mona's aunt pimps her out but not anyone's insinuation of Mona's promiscuity – or that he would handle gun he intended to use in a murder and only think afterward to wipe off his fingerprints, and generally make situations worse with impulsive acts and words. Boyer is the only other actor who makes much of an impression, with Trintignant wearing a blank stare and saying little so that Franck (and by extension, Dewaere) might project onto her. The tone vacillates constantly between comedy and drama, mirroring Franck's moods, culminating in a climax of murder, impotent rage, and pathetically desperate optimism in the final shot. Although Thompson would write prolifically in literature and to a lesser extending in film and television between 1942 and 1973, Série noire was only the third cinematic Thompson adaptation – following The Getaway and The Killer Inside Me – but Hollywood would look to Thompson intermittently throughout the eighties and nineties (although usually to the same handful of novels). There is no score but the film is underscored throughout with pointed use of popular songs from Duke Ellington's "Moonlight Fiesta" (the subtitle on Corneau's screenplay) to Boney M.'s then-current cover of "Rivers of Babylon" or disco numbers by Sheila B. Devotion and Shake oddly but effectively used for dramatic accompaniment.  Choice of Arms: A pair of prisoners – old-timer Serge (The Vanishing's Pierre Forget) and young hothead Mickey (Maitresse's Gérard Depardieu) – climb over the wall one night to a getaway car. Mickey has no intentions of getting caught again, shocking Serge by ramming a pursuing police car who thought they were merely speeding and executing both officers. Unfortunately, their getaway driver Ricky (The Unbearable Lightness of Being's Jean-Claude Dauphin) has betrayed them to rival gang member Sylvain Constantini who has a long-standing beef with Serge. The gang opens fire on their vehicle but Mickey manages to kill most of them, with only Roland (A Girl Cut in Two's Etienne Chicot) surviving and escaping while Mickey is preoccupied with getting help for wounded Serge. Serge directs him to ex-gangster Noel Durieux (Police Python 357's Yves Montant) who is living a peaceful life in the country raising horses with wife Nicole (The Hunger's Catherine Deneuve). Noel gets medical help for Serge who remains bed-bound in their stables but Mickey bristles at Noel ordering him to keep a low profile in spite of the ex-gangster offering to help get both of the men out of the country. Mickey speeds off to Paris to catch a glimpse of his young daughter but all of his old friends have moved on with their lives, driving Mickey to violence. He calls Noel and demands that he help him get out of the country; however, when he returns to Noel's chateau, he runs into Inspector Bonnardot (La Cage aux Folles' Michel Galabru) and his young partner Sarlat (Mesrine: Part 2 - Public Enemy #1's Gérard Lanvin) and mistakenly believes that Noel ratted him out when they are actually investigating his part in the murders of Constantini and his men. When Constantini's older brother Raymond (A View to a Kill's Jean Rougerie) who has also "retired" claims to be unable to help; Noel reunites with two of his old gang members Jean (And God Created Woman's Christian Marquand) and Andre (The Professional's Jean-Claude Bouillaud) to track down Mickey. Not content to "let informants do our work" as Bonnardt waits to see if his predictions about Noel's moves are right, Sarlat goes behind his back with rookie Savin (La vie en rose's Marc Chapiteau) and his own impulsive actions could turns a fraught situation into a tragic one. An original scenario inspired by director Corneau and crime writer Michel Grisolia (Cop or Hood) the Série noire literary and filmic tradition, Choice of Arms seems on the surface like a Hollywood-ready "hoods versus badass gentlemen gangsters" film, but nothing is quite so clean-cut. Mickey seems like a violent psychopath from the start, and there is little to refute that for the most part other than his own suppressed shame at not being able to be in his daughter's life – his desperation to get out of the country seems at least part realization that she is better off not knowing him – and his frustration that his old buddies have moved on into various forms of domesticity including young delivery man Dany (Richard Anconina) who actually lives with his wife and child and possibly resenting the happiness Noel has achieved while supposedly being no better than himself. The more Noel learns about Mickey, the more he realizes that they started out the same way while Mickey realizes all too late that some of his own impulsive behavior is responsible for the mess he is in and has dragged others into as well, and the film takes this scenario of opposed characters finding a common ground and handles it and its tragic outcome deftly thanks as much to the scripting as the range of its actors with the loud Depardieu most impressive at his most restrained, Deneuve's coolness revealing an inner warmth in Montand's presence – as well as impressive scenes in which her character refuses to be intimidated by people try to command respect with a badge or fear by brandishing a gun – and Montand effortlessly conveying just how much his character suppresses under a mask of calm and control. Also impressive are the supporting performances of Lanvin and particularly Dauphin who provides backstory on Mickey without seeming like a mere deliverer of exposition. From the neon-lit, rainslicked streets to Noel's misty chateau, the Panavision photography of Pierre-William Glenn (Death Watch) is utterly stunning, eschewing fashionable filters for crisp imagery that nevertheless remains picturesque in the misty Cork, Ireland scenes without prettifying the bloodshed and urban grit. The orchestral scoring of Philippe Sarde (The Tenant) features one piece that feels like Georges Delerue cue while otherwise being more trademark playful Sarde. Director Corneau returned to crime and noir throughout the rest of his career, culminating in his final film Love Crime (subsequently remade by Brian De Palma as Passion). 
Video
Not released in the United States until 1980 by Specialty Films and not at all in the U.K., Police Python 357 has been available on DVD in various European territories including France (one of them actually part of a "Série noire" DVD line) ever since Studio Canal gained ownership of Le Films de Boetie's distribution titles – although some of their co-productions like their Chabrol films remain with a smaller distributor who has shown no apparent interest in remastering them – while the film makes its Blu-ray debut in Japan in 2019 followed by a 2021 French Blu-ray (as part of Studio Canal's "Make My Day" line of international crime films) which is presuambly the source for Radiance Films' U.S. and U.K. editions. Although detail is sometimes startling – as in the sequence where the camera roams over the surface of Gustave Moreau's stunning painting "L'Apparition" depicting Salome dancing before King Herod at the Musée national Gustave Moreau – there are a few shots within the film in which the image jitters very noticeably (primarily scenes in Sandrelli's apartment preceding her murder). Presumably this is organic to the original shooting as no image stabilization has been applied and may even be an indicator of which scenes were shot on the same day.  Distributed theatrically stateside by short-lived arthouse label Putnam Square Films, Série noire was more heard about than seen, unavailable but for a non-anamorphic French DVD (its black minimalist cover in the style of a Gallimard noir paperback) followed in 2013 by a Studio Canal Blu-ray, neither of which were English-friendly. In 2020, Film Movement's put out a Blu-ray stateside from a 2019 2K digital restoration by Rialto Pictures. Radiance Films lists the source of their Region A/B-coded 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray as "high definition digital files" supplied by the rights holder – in this case Studio Canal. We do not know if this is a newer restoration or the one used for the 2013 Blu-ray but the image is slightly darker which has the effect of making the overcast exteriors palpably chilly and the interiors more squalid under the warmer source lighting while one wonders if the overall sleekness of Trintignant's hair, skin, and clothing compared to just about everyone else might be a projection of her by protagonist. Colors are generally subdued but the darker image does allow a few oranges to pop from the surrounding browns.  Choice of Arms was not released in the United States until 1983 and cropped VHS in 1987. For some time the sole English-friendly digital version was a barebones Australian DVD while the film has been on Blu-ray since 2011 as an Italian Blu-ray. We have no idea if the 2024 French release means a new transfer – the booklet merely refers to the sources of all three films in the set as "high resolution digital files" – but Radiance's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray is the best-looking film in the set, although mostly because of the then state-of-the-art Panavision lenses since all three films are well-lit and use a minimum of prettifying or diffusing filters. The image is consistently crisp-looking, revealing just how much the film relies on the facial expressiveness of the the performers over dialogue to drive the drama. 
Audio
Police Python 357 features a French LPCM 2.0 mono track boasting clear dialogue, effects, and most prominently the Delerue score from the very start with an unnerving choral piece underlining the film's religious imagery, the more trademark Delerue romantic yearning cues, and some playful harpsichord during Ferrot's desperate attempt to find the chateau in the photograph. Série noire's sole audio option is an LPCM 2.0 mono track in which post-dubbed French is always cleanly rendered while the spare mix calls attention to the musical choices throughout including the aforementioned Boney M. disco tune suggesting a desire by Mona for different surroundings. Optional English subtitles are free of any noticeable errors.  Choice of Arms was Corneau's first Dolby Stereo film and the film makes effective if conservative use of stereo separation beyond the score for alarms, gunfire – playfully so in the scene in which Mickey fires in all directions in Noel's dining room – shattered glass, screeching tires, crashing cars, and galloping horses. Optional English subtitles are free of any noticeable errors. 
Extras
Police Python 357's extras start off with an audio commentary by The Projection Booth Podcast's Mike White who out of necessity spends a large chunk of the first half discussing série noire as a literary genre, its founding and the directives towards translation for French readers, before discussing just how the film at hand is actually a loose and updated adaptation of Kenneth Fearing's novel "The Big Clock" (originally adapted as a bona fide Hollywood film noir in 1948 and later as the Kevin Costner vehicle No Way Out). An interview with author Maxim Jakubowski (15:11) also provides information the Gallimard imprint, revealing that post-war paper restrictions were responsible for the sometimes severe pruning of the noir translations and that French readers were not aware until the rights reverted and new translations were put out by different publishers. Jakubowski also discusses the film as well as Corneau's Série noire adaptation of the Jim Thompson novel, and Choice of Arms as an original work inspired by the literary and cinematic genre. Lastly, there is a 1976 Belgian television interview with director Alain Corneau and actor François Périer (5:31) in which Corneau discusses the casting and the plot while Périer focuses on his character and being intimidated acting with Signoret even though he had known her for years off screen.  Série noire's extras start with the 2013 documentary "Série noire: The Darkness of the Soul" (53:33) in which Boyer, producer Maurice Bernart (Bye Bye Monkey), cinematographer Glenn, and Nadine Trintignant (The Honeymoon Trip) – Corneau's widow and mother of actress Trintignant with actor Jean-Louis Trintigant – along with critics and Dewaere's biographer. They note that Corneau had been planning to adapt Thompson's "Pop. 1280" with plans to shoot it in America, and even went to Los Angeles to work on the script with Thompson but the project fell through. Corneau found "A Hell of a Woman" to be more adaptable to a French setting, and brought in Georges Perec (The Man Who Sleeps) to write the dialogue because he was an expert on American noir, although Boyer says that Perec had reservations about adapting Thompson and expected the actors to rewrite their own dialogue but they kept to it instead finding his playful innovations suited to Corneau's approach. They discuss the design of the film, shooting on location, making clothing choices from cheap local shops – apart from Trintignant's Chanel skirt which she claimed was a cheap garment and did not reveal the truth until after the film finished shooting) – and Glenn's use of fast film and lighting for mood rather than subject since they shot both reverse angles at the same time using two cameras and letting the actors move about within the frame without blocking. Also included is an interview with director Alain Corneau and actress Marie Trintignant (28:52) from 2002 in which the director discusses adapting Thompson – the abandoned "Pop. 1280" project would be taken up two years later by Bertrand Tavernier as Clean Slate where the action was moved to Africa – and the differences between American and French noir with the latter drawing on a combination of Gothic elements from England and German and Viennese traditions from artists fleeing the Nazis while French noir derived more from the psychological and analytical approaches of French detective fiction by way of Georges Simenon in literature and Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique) in film.. He cites French noir as well as the innovations of the unusual American thrillers Mean Streets and Dog Day Afternoon along with the use of music as influences. Trintignant turns up after the fifteen minute mark to remark on the shoot intercutting with Corneau's discussion. The disc also includes a 1981 Belgian television set interviews with director Alain Corneau and actors Patrick Dewaere and Miriam Boyer (10:56) in which they separately discuss the seedy nature of the story, the film's scenes of violence, and Corneau noting what Dewaere brings to the part in scenes like the bathtub submersion sequence. "A Hollyhock in a Cornfield: Jim Thompson on Screen" (29:41) is a visual essay by film historian Patrick Martinovic. The title speaks for itself but this is more than just an overview as Martinovic discusses Thompson's most prolific period of writing during which his most-adapted novels were written, his experiences as a screenwriter including his bitter experiences with Stanley Kubrick adapting The Killing and Paths of Glory, and the remainder of his life living on money from projects that always ended up falling through. In discussing subsequent film adaptations, Martinovic notes the ways that filmmakers either were too faithful to the prose – like the heavy narration of the 1976 The Killer Inside Me – or compromised the downbeat and unsavory elements like The Getaway which was to include the novel's ending until star Steve McQueen insisted that it end with the couple getting away. In discussing Série noire, he notes the source novel's splitting of the lead's personality into different identities in alternating chapters and how instead the film relies on Dewaere's skill to convey his mental derangement even if his fate is left open compared to the novel. Martinovic also discusses subsequent adaptations including eighties neo-noir ones like After Dark My Sweet and The Grifters and how they manage to mediate the brutality of Thompson's prose through performance along with the far more graphically violent 2010 The Killer Inside Me and its graphic fidelity to Thompson's treatment of his female characters and suggests that the "me too" movement will make Thompson an unlikely choice for further adaptations. The disc also includes the film's theatrical trailer (2:21).  Choice of Arms's extras start with introduction by documentary filmmaker Jérôme Wybon (3:14) ported from the Studio Canal French Blu-ray along with the 1981 television special "Shooting Choice of Arms" (21:48) featuring behind the scenes footage and interviews with Corneau, Montand, Deneuve, Depardieu – who reveals that he was supposed to play one of the young cops in Police Python 357 but his schedule did not line up and he made a deal a year in advance to appear in Choice of Arms – and Lanvin from the shoot as well as a later visit to the editing room where Corneau feels that the real storytelling begins. New to this disc is another 1981 television piece featuring interviews with actors Catherine Deneuve, Yves Montand, and Gerard Depardieu from the set (18:12) in which they are deliberately vague and even use misdirection to keep from spoiling the film and their roles in it with the jocular trio even noting the tendency of actors answer the question of what a film is about from the perspective of their own character. Also new is an interview with critic Manuela Lazic (23:57) who notes that Montand is most familiar to English-speakers for The Wages of Fear but in France is as identified with his films as his earlier singing career and a voice of the proletariat along with wife Signoret who eschewed actual political involvement after being disillusioned with the Stalinist take on communism after a visit to the Soviet Union. Lazic also discusses Montand's childhood, fleeing fascist Italy with his parents and settling in Marseille when no more visas to America were available, how his singing career was molded by his first love Édith Piaf when he replaced another performer at the last minute when the Moulin Rouge decided to go back to being a music hall after a brief detour into cinema screenings, the effect of his early collaborations with Henri-Georges Clouzot and Costa-Gavras, along with his affinity for comedy, and eventually an appreciation of his Corneau collaborations. The disc also features a theatrical trailer (2:42). 
Packaging
The three discs are housed in a single keep case within a 2,500-copy limited rigid box with a removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings, and an 80-page booklet – the cover designed to resemble the série noire yellow and black covers – featuring a 1995 interview with Corneau discussing his attraction to the "polar" genre, the effect of the changing French urban landscape, his attempt to adapt Thompson's "Pop. 1280" and adapting "A Hell of a Woman" and the casting of Dewaere, and his desire to return to the noir genre. Andrew Male contributes another piece on the série noire imprint including quotes from editor Marcel Duhamel along with his guidelines for authors who started writing to order, Travis Woods discusses the cyclical nature of Corneau's storytelling in his noir films, Charlie Brigden focuses on Delerue's scoring for Police Python 357, Nick Pinkerton discusses the synthesis of clashing elements (narratively and stylistically) in Choice of Arms, and the booklet closes with a tribute to Dewaere by Corneau written in 1986. 
Overall
Hardboiled: Three Pulp Thrillers by Alain Corneau collects not only three of Corneau's best films but also three very different examples of the série noire and its potential for taking the polar and the policier beyond their conventions.
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