Middle-aged businessman Gerard Oury comes home early from a weekend trip hoping to surprise the wife. He hopes to take her out for a nice dinner. It is a surprise all right! As Oury pulls up the street he sees his wife, Jeanne Moreau, stepping from a sports car with a young man on her arm. The two engage in a bit of tongue wrestling before the man gets back in the car and drives off. Oury follows the car to the young man's apartment. He gets the man's name and address from the lobby and drives off. He grabs a hotel room and a bottle and proceeds to get plastered. He decides that rather than confront Moreau with her infidelity he will get even. He will get his revenge by making the lives of Moreau and her lover, Philippe Nicaud, miserable. He returns home the next day as planned and goes about his business as normal. Oury opens a post office box with the id from a former employee who is now deceased. He then sends an anonymous letter to his wife. The letter states that they know about her affair and for a sum of 50,000 francs they will not inform the husband. Moreau rushes to Nicaud and asks what they should do. Nicaud, a low rent piano player in various clubs has not a franc to his name. Nicaud borrows the money from a former lover and the cash is sent. Oury collects the cash and has a good laugh. Oury meanwhile has hired a private eye to get some compromising photos of Moreau and Nicaud. "For a divorce case" he tells the P.I. Since Moreau and Nicaud are still seeing each other the pictures are rather easy to come up with. Oury waits several days and sends another request for cash. He includes one of the photos and hints the others will be sent to her husband. That night around the dinner table Moreau asks Oury for some money. "I would like to get some new dresses" she says. "I can't have my wife dressed in anything but the best" and hands over a thick wad of cash. Of course he knows he will get it all back. Oury is quite enjoying himself as his plan unfolds like clockwork. The perfect plan is about to hit the first of several speed bumps. Moreau and Nicaud decide to hire some goons to watch the post office and see who comes for the package. Oury picks up the envelope and is quickly grabbed up by a pair of large gentlemen and taken for a ride. Oury simply laughs and offers the pair 5 times their fee to switch teams. Money is money and the two report back to Moreau and company that they must have missed the blackmailer. Now Oury hires the private eye again to pretend he is a music agent. He is to offer Nicaud a well paying gig up the coast in Brussels. At the same time he sends the wife another set of photos and a demand for 500,000 francs. Moreau pawns her jewels and furs and sends the cash. Oury now uses the cash to have the P.I. give Nicaud a nice cash advance on his "upcoming" gig. All the while Moreau is keeping up a brave front at home. Oury is amazed that she has not confessed all. Nicaud calls Moreau over to his apartment to tell her the news about his new job. As he is packing Moreau sees the pile of "advance" cash sitting on his desk. She recognizes that the serial numbers are the same as the ones she just paid the blackmailer with! She realizes that her lover must really be the blackmailer! "The swine has been playing me all along." She pulls out a small gun from the desk and blasts Nicaud. Moreau goes home and confesses all to Oury, the affair, the blackmail and the killing. Oury, a quick thinker, asks where the body is and had anybody seen her there. "No." Oury grabs his car and goes over to Nicaud's apartment where he gathers up any evidence left by his wife. He then waits for nightfall, wraps the body in a carpet and loads the body in the car trunk. He takes said stiff to his company warehouse. There, he places the corpse at the bottom of a new wall that just happens be under construction. He mixes up a batch of concrete and adds a layer of several feet over the corpse. Now he returns home and tells the wife all is taken care of. Moreau of course now becomes the ever so devoted wife and all is great for Oruy. For a few months all is wonderful till Moreau finds the fake identification Oury used for the postal box. Moreau is floored! She has killed her one true love and it was all a plan of her husband. She writes a note to the police giving details that now clearly implicate Oury as Nicaud's killer. She sends off the note with her maid to be delivered. Moreau then takes Oury's own pistol and blows her brains out. Needless to say Oury is soon grabbed up for the murder of Nicaud. Neat little film with more than a few nice twists and turns. Those perfect plans do have a way of coming unglued!
5 Reviews
Derivative story with some novel twists
gridoon202412 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
(be warned - spoilers!) Derivative love-triangle yarn (even one of the characters describes it as "banal" at one point), but with some novel twists: the cheated-upon husband not only assumes a fake identity and blackmails the illicit couple for the fun of it, but later he decides to frame the lover as being the blackmailer himself! There are some well-executed gimmicks (like the near-wordless opening ten minutes; as if to compensate perhaps, the rest of the film is overly talky), and a very good performance by Gerard Oury, who is better known (to me, at least) as a director. Top-billed Jeanne Moreau has the secondary role here. **1/2 out of 4.
Stylish film noir
pbczf3 February 2024
This stylish film noir is filled with characters double-crossing each other and then exacting their revenge for the betrayal. Set in the post-war economic boom, the film explores how the qualities that make a driven entrepreneur successful in business can also lead to his downfall--though the path there is filled with twists and turns enough to keep the audience in suspense.
Jeanne Moreau is excellent as the wife caught between lover and husband. We're never quite sure what the character is thinking: is she really charmed to meet the minister or is it just good business? As often in French films of the period, foreign autos tell us a great deal about the characters: a Buick Special from the States for the husband and a flashy MG convertible from Britain for the lover.
The photography is excellent and the film's pace never flags as the plot zigs and zags its way to the conclusion.
Jeanne Moreau is excellent as the wife caught between lover and husband. We're never quite sure what the character is thinking: is she really charmed to meet the minister or is it just good business? As often in French films of the period, foreign autos tell us a great deal about the characters: a Buick Special from the States for the husband and a flashy MG convertible from Britain for the lover.
The photography is excellent and the film's pace never flags as the plot zigs and zags its way to the conclusion.
Something's lacking here.
dbdumonteil23 December 2002
Released at the same time as "ascenseur pour l'échafaud" ,both featuring the same actress (Jeanne Moreau),but unlike Louis Malle's work,not labelled "nouvelle vague" "le dos au mur" has enough assets to catch the viewer's attention:outside Moreau,a screenplay adapted from a Frederic Dard 's Novel,with an action packed ending,and the desperate mood we find in every Dard-inspired film noir :such Moreau lines as "I could not live without him anymore,but I could not stand life without him "is the hero's only solace before his fate is sealed.
Gerard Oury who would direct such French blockbusters as "le corniaud" (1964) and "la grande vadrouille" (1966) is not much of an actor and his part should have been given to Robert Hossein,the par excellence Dard actor.Besides ,the screenplay which uses the long flashback one more time(one too many) laboriously progresses in the first half,with a much too slow pace.Worth a try all the same.
Gerard Oury who would direct such French blockbusters as "le corniaud" (1964) and "la grande vadrouille" (1966) is not much of an actor and his part should have been given to Robert Hossein,the par excellence Dard actor.Besides ,the screenplay which uses the long flashback one more time(one too many) laboriously progresses in the first half,with a much too slow pace.Worth a try all the same.
Watchable, but forgettable.
bombersflyup15 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
In Back to the Wall, a man catches his wife having an affair and decides to essentially annoy her.
In doing so, Jacques costs himself considerable money. He tricks her into thinking the man she's having an affair with, is the one blackmailing her and she kills him and comes back to Jacques. We see him disposing of the body at the start of the film, though I think it would've been stronger in regular sequence. He shows her where he disposed of the body and you're just waiting for her to come to the truth at the end. She tells the police where Jacques put the body and commits suicide, everyone loses. It's rather lackluster overall and the performances all unmemorable.
In doing so, Jacques costs himself considerable money. He tricks her into thinking the man she's having an affair with, is the one blackmailing her and she kills him and comes back to Jacques. We see him disposing of the body at the start of the film, though I think it would've been stronger in regular sequence. He shows her where he disposed of the body and you're just waiting for her to come to the truth at the end. She tells the police where Jacques put the body and commits suicide, everyone loses. It's rather lackluster overall and the performances all unmemorable.
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