Later, the death of a perfume saleswoman sets a police inspector (Yves Montand) on the trail of an actress (Simone Signoret), her lover (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a seedy office worker (Michel Piccoli) and a trucker (Charles Denner).
Imagine Murder on the Orient Express with Hercule Poirot schlepping around Paris to question his suspects and you get the gist of debutant Costa-Gavras’s voguish adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot’s policier novel. Only the opening scenes take place on the overnight service from Marseilles to Paris, and they’re confined to a corridor, a washroom and the cramped sleeping compartment into which a woman smuggles a stowaway after she boards the train at Avignon. Later, the death of a perfume saleswoman sets a police inspector (Yves Montand) on the trail of an actress (Simone Signoret), her lover (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a seedy office worker (Michel Piccoli) and a trucker (Charles Denner).