Overview: A prison break, femme fatales and a genre-defining western: Robert Hossein (Rififi) was, both behind and in front of the camera, one of French cinema’s great unsung stylists. Three of his finest genre exploits are collected here.

In The Wicked Go to Hell, two inmates (Henri Vidal, A Kiss for a Killer, and Serge Reggiani, The Leopard) join forces to stage a daring escape. In Blonde in a White Car, a drifter (Robert Hossein, also director) is tempted into a night of passion by a pair of mystery blondes (Marina Vlady, 2 or 3 Things I know about Her, and Odile Versois, Passport to Shame).

In The Taste of Violence, a revolutionary kidnaps the daughter (Giovanna Ralli, The Mercenary) of a dictator to negotiate a prisoner swap with his two lieutenants Chamaco (Mario Adorf, The Italian Connection) and Chico (Hans H. Neubert, Der Richter von London).

Blu-ray Verdict: First up is The Wicked Go to Hell (1955) which was Hossein’s debut as a director and it’s brilliant. Abetted by Frederic Dard’s screenplay, Dard would provide Hossein with his best stories, in my humble opinion.

Henri Vidal and Serge Reggiani are awesome in their roles, but the overall scheme is so classic, overused, with the unavoidable femme fatale; and yet it still manages to rise above the usual. Oh, and here Marina Vlady is the femme kin question and she was also the spouse of Robert Hossein.

Not really a crime film, well, not entirely, rather a drama, a character study, if you will, the last shot of Vlady watching the two men walking away packs a real wallop. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, indeed.

Up next is Blonde in a White Car (Blonde in a White Car (1958) and was also known as Toi le Venin and could also be heralded as Robert Hossein’s masterpiece, I guess, as it is one of the great thrillers of the fifties.

Based on a Frederic Dard novel, a writer the director often worked with (see also le Monte-Charge which Hossein did not direct but in which he was the lead too), the screenplay grabs you from the first pictures on a desert road by night where a beautiful blonde might be the fieriest of the criminals, to the mysterious house where he finds his femme fatale ... and her sister.

Then begins a cat and mouse play. One of the sisters is in a wheelchair, but is she really disabled? Which one is the criminal and who tried to kill the hero on that night? Oh, and the two actresses, Marina Vlady and the late Odile Versois, were actually real-life sisters!

Last we get The Taste of Violence (1961), which is admittedly a slow-moving movie, albeit with some good scenes, which stems from Hossein’s flair for film noir: the walking through the main street of a town between two rows of hanged men; the discovery of a tortured man in the night; the final on the beach, et al.

The great Madeleine Robinson has only one scene, but she makes it count, especially when delivering the line: What’s the point of carrying on so meaningless a fight? What are you gonna win? Is it worth at all?

José Giovanni would resume the subject of the illusive revolution in le rapace(1968) and, in my humble opinion, surpass Hossein.

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
2K restorations by Gaumont for each film, presented on three discs
Original uncompressed mono audio for each film
Audio commentary on each film by critic and author Tim Lucas (2025)
Picking Strawberries - A newly created ‘making of’ featurette with historian Lucas Balbo, featuring archive interviews with Hossein and Jean Rollin (2025)
Behind Marked Eyes: The Cinematic Stare of Robert Hossein - A newly created featurette by Howard S. Berger about Hossein and his work (2025)
Interview with actor Marina Vlady (2014)
The Evolution of the Femme Fatale in Classic French Cinema - A visual essay by critic Samm Deighan (2025)
The Taste of Violence appreciation by filmmaker and Western authority Alex Cox (2025)
Interview with author C. Courtney Joyner on The Taste of Violence and the Zapata Western subgenre (2025)
Trailers
Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Walter Chaw and newly translated archival writing by Lucas Balbo
Limited Edition of 3000 copies, presented in a rigid box with full-height Scanavo cases and removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Official Purchase Link

www.radiancefilms.co.uk