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The Inquisitor + Deadly Circuit: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Radiance Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (18th August 2025). |
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The Film
 "A director with a dark sensibility comparable to Chabrol, Claude Miller made these two twisty Polars (French Police-Noir films) with Michel Serrault (Kill the Referee), showcasing the actor in stunning performances alongside stars including Lino Ventura (Army of Shadows) and Isabelle Adjani (Possession, The Story of Adele H)." César (Best Film): Claude Miller (nominee), Best Actor: Michel Serrault (winner), Best Supporting Actor: Guy Marchand (winner), Best Director: Claude Miller (nominee), Best Screenplay, Original or Adaptation: Claude Miller, Jean Herman, and Michel Audiard (winner), Best Cinematography: Bruno Nuytten (nominee), Best Editing: Albert Jurgenson (winner), and Best Sound: Paul Lainé (winner) - César Awards, 1982 Critics Award (Best Film): Claude Miller (winner) - French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, 1982 The Inquisitor: On the raining evening of New Year's Eve 1980, solicitor Jerome Charles Emile Martinaud ( La cage aux folles' Michel Serrault) is summoned to the police station by Inspector Antoine Gallien (Elevator to the Gallows' Lino Ventura) to clarify some inconsistencies in his statement after discovering while walking his neighbor's dog the body of eight-year-old neighbor Pauline Valera who had been strangled, raped, and left in a ditch. Not only has his neighbor claimed that Martinaud did not walk his dog that day and none of his neighbors recall seeing him with the dog that morning but his car got a ticket for being illegally parked near the beach where eight-year-old Genevieve Le Bailly was found strangled and raped in the surf when he was ostensibly visiting his estranged sister who had been ill and was about to have an operation. Martinaud offers glib explanations for the witness statements but already senses before Gallien reveals that he has gone from witness to main suspect that the inspector is trying to trip him up; and needling interjections by Inspector Marcel Belmont (Clean Slate's Guy Marchand) who is transcribing the session. As Martinaud gets tripped up by Gallien's tactics and rebounds, the detective knows that Martinaud is lying as to his whereabouts but not entirely sure why, and why he has further lied about contacting his wife Chantal (Sissi's Romy Schneider). When Chantal does turn up demanding to see her husband, he refuses to see her. Gallien goes to see her himself, but is she there to prove her husband's innocence or condemn him with an anecdote about a past Christmas spent with her sister (the director's wife Anne Miller) and their daughter Camille (future singer Elsa Lunghini)? Based on the novel "Brainwash" by John Wainwright – published in France by Éditions Gallimard under the Série noire imprint as "À table", Claude Miller's The Inquisitor – its French title "Garde à vue" translates as "In Custody" but it is also cited in English references as "The Grilling" and "Under Suspicion" (more on that below) – was shot mostly on an expansive studio set surrounded by neon light and omnipresent rainfall by Bruno Nuytten (Possession) in chronological order but for all of its comfortable production value feels like a stage play opened up by cutaways to the New Year's party and flashbacks/fantasies – fittingly so since Wainwight says in his novel's first paragraph "in effect the room was the stage upon which the whole drama was performed. The stage, and more than the stage; it was also the backdrop, the wings and the scenery. And the door was the curtain which, when it opened, allowed one of the star actors to enter on perfect cue and thereafter deliver his lines without prompting and with immaculate timing" – with the intense performances keeping it from feeling "stagey" despite a limited amount of possible shots in the film's coverage during the questioning: essentially close-ups of the Ventura, Serrault, and Marchand, over the shoulder shots, and deep focus wide shots showing the three in the foreground, middle, and background (that in itself necessitating a studio set). Even the scoring of Georges Delerue (Contempt) takes a minimalist approach with variations on a calliope-dominated theme at different tempos and incidental pieces for the New Year's Party across the street. Belmont is hardheaded and narrow-focused – almost derailing the questioning when he "leans on" Martinaud while Gallien has crossed the street to the New Year's party to brief the Commissioner (Molière's Jean-Claude Penchenat) who typically warns him of the sensitivity of handling someone of Martinaud's reputation while also refreshingly not discouraging Gallien's inquiry – while Gallien concedes that on paper Martinaud is guilty but he is not so sure speaking to him in person and even his admission to Martniaud that the man amuses and surprises him, and that he even likes him, has a ring of truth beneath the mind games. For Martinaud, the viewer is never sure whether his evasiveness is that of a guilty man, a cunning solicitor setting them up to tear apart the account on record in court even when he has seemingly confessed, or an innocent man for which this "grilling" or "inquisition" becomes a sort of psychodrama. When Gallien dismisses Martinaud in spite of what is implied about Camille in the elliptical scenes with Gallien and what Martinaud intimates, the viewer has no confirmation of any actual impropriety and Gallien himself may not find either of them to be reliable (and one questions just which of them has wasted the other's time). That the climax hinges on a convenient discovery is not really a contrivance but as a seeming indictment to the nonchalant moral certainty (more so than superiority) of Gallien. The film as remade stateside in 2000 as Under Suspicion by Stephen Hopkins with Gene Hackman in the Serrault role, Morgan Freeman in the Ventura role, Thomas Jane in the Marchand role, and Monica Bellucci in the Schneider role (the credits citing both the Wainwright novel along with Miller, his co-scripter Jean Herman, and the dialogues of Michel Audiard suggesting that the remake drew enough changes from the Miller adaptation to credit it).  César (Best Actor): Michel Serrault (nominee), Best Supporting Actress: Stéphane Audran (nominee), Best Cinematography: Pierre Lhomme (nominee), Best Production Design: Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko (nominee), and Best Sound: Nadine Muse, Paul Lainé, and Maurice Gilbert (nominee) - César Awards, 1984 Deadly Circuit: Out of work since he shot a small-time crook, Brussels private detective Beauvoir (The Inquisitor's Michel Serrault), or "The Eye", has only the yearly call to his estranged wife Madeleine (Belle de jour's Macha Méril) who gives him one guess per year to pick out his daughter Marie who he has not seen since she was two-years-old from a 1962 class photograph. His boss Schmidt-Boulanger (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes' Geneviève Page) gives him the chance to rehabilitate his reputation by getting the dirt on the elusive girlfriend of Paul Hugo (Nelly & Monsieur Arnaud's Philippe Lelièvre) on behalf of his wealthy parents which seems like it should be an easy job for him and a lucrative one for his boss. Beauvoir starts by trailing Paul and observes him withdrawing a hundred thousand dollars in American currency before he meets up with beautiful student Lucie Bretano (The Story of Adele H.'s Isabelle Adjani) and a weekend at his parent's unused lakeside villa. Before Beauvoir has the opportunity to start looking into Lucie's background, he spies her taking a boat out onto the lake and sinking a something corpse-shaped and wrapped in plastic. The next time Beauvoir sees her, Lucie has changed her look and deposited Paul's money before booking a ticket to Monte Carlo. Beauvoir tells his boss that Paul and Lucie broke up and wangles the funds to allegedly fly to Las Vegas and retrieve Paul; however, he finds that Lucie has changed her look again and become Dorothy Ortiz as he follows her to Monte Carlo where she and Michel de Meyerganz (Patrick Bouchitey) announce their engagement at a party and her future father-in-law gifts her the family heirlooms of emerald ear rings and a necklace… only later that night Dorothy has vanished and Beauvoir takes it upon himself to delay the discovery of Michel's corpse. He next finds Dorothy as model Eve Granger at a West German resort as the object of attention by playboy Jerry (composer François Bernheim) and lesbian Cora (Isabelle Ho) who are soon divested respectively of cash and a diamond necklace in a fatal manner. Eve then introduces herself as Charlotte Vincent to wealthy blind Swiss architect Ralph Forbes (Manon 70's Sami Frey) and Beauvoir becomes jealous and possessive when it seems that Forbes is not next on Charlotte's hit list; however, Beauvoir soon discovers that he is not the only person trailing Catherine Leiris (whose real name he learns from a fingerprint match) but the odd pairing of pimp Louis (Guy Marchand) and former prostitute Germaine (Betty's Stéphane Audran) have an eye towards blackmail and Beauvoir finds himself becoming ruthlessly protective of a female serial killer to the extreme of putting himself in her crosshairs. Based on the novel "Eye of the Beholder" by American screenwriter Marc Behm (Charade) which became "Mortelle randonnée" when it was published in France by Galimard as part of their Série noire line, Claude Miller's follow-up to the successful The Inquisitor finds him working with a higher budget and globe-hopping with two box office hit stars and a supporting cast dotted with standout supporting bits from Audran and Marchand along with amusing cameos from the likes of Jean-Claude Brialy (A Woman is a Woman), Etienne Chicot (Mr. Klein), screenwriter Luc Béraud (Miller's L'effrontée), and Jean-Paul Comart (La balance). This obsessive noir about the slow mental breakdowns of two people coping with loss through violence – Beauvoir claims to have a small time crook in self-defense but his boss knows the hammer the man wielded was actually in his pocket and it may have been that Beauvoir shot him because the man failed to kill him – is as tragic as it is wonderfully quirky with Serrault keeping a running dialogue with his lost daughter, deflecting the curiosity of people who overhear him by soliciting the answers to crossword puzzle clues, and both knowing that Catherine could not be his daughter but treating her as though she was and in a twisted way doing his job by getting information on the girl rather than catching a killer and taking it beyond the point of a detached observer to being complicit even without her knowledge. Adjani's looks have always been as powerful a part of her repertoire as her range, and Miller and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme (Maurice) keep the viewer fixtated on her face and the "masks" her character embodies while trying to sort out truth from fantasy when she provides details of her past and her relationship with her lost father. The climax features a spectacular car stunt but the coda has no such need of special effects only Serrault's narration to remain faithful to the novel's concluding image. The film was remade in 1999 as Eye of the Beholder directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) as a vehicle for Ashley Judd (Bug) with Ewan McGregor (Velvet Goldmine) as The Eye. 
Video
Released theatrically stateside subtitled in 1981 as "Garde à vue (Under Suspicion)" by Fred Baker Films and in 1982 in the U.K. as The Inquisitor by Gala Film Distributors, the film has been regularly available in France – first as part of TF1's Collection Polars line and then as a line dedicated to filmmaker Michel Audiard – as well as Germany (including a limited edition double feature DVD with the aforementioned remake and a 2011 Blu-ray which is either an upscale or from a TV HD master since it is 1080i and runs at 25fps). The film received a 2K restoration circa 2016 and was released on Blu-ray in France by TF1 and a 4K restoration in 2024 that debuted on 4K UltraHD /Blu-ray combo by boutique label Rimini (with subsequent standard edition 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray in early 2025). Radiance Films' 2160p24 HEVC 1.66:1 widescreen Dolby Vision 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray limited edition with a bonus Blu-ray disc of Miller's later film Deadly Circuit – simultaneously available in a two-disc Blu-ray limited edition – marks the film's English-friendly debut on both formats. Even with the title opticals, the presentation is a stunner from the start with more detail evident from the washes of rain across the roofs of automobiles and down the sides of buildings to the lines in Ventura's face and the subtle facial mannerism of Serrault and Marchand. Schneider is given a sort of glamour treatment that still manages to convey a certain existential weariness during her story proper scenes compared to the flashbacks. The large soundstage interior/exterior police station set holds up well enough in HD and 4K to convince as a genuine location, blending seamlessly with the actual exteriors and the cutaways to the seaside and the forest have a naturalism that contrasts sharply with the flourescent-lit station scenes. Dolby Vision HDR gives incrementally more of a sense of depth to recessed areas in the frame that flatten in the shadows on Blu-ray (a certain surprise in the front seat of a darkened car is more effective in HDR than Blu-ray but only slightly more, perhaps registering milliseconds sooner to the viewer before the other passenger).  A troubled and expensive production, Deadly Circuit did not pick up distribution in most English-speaking territories and even did not premiere in some European territories until the late eighties, with the film finally turning up stateside on DVD under its French title in 2003 in a PAL-to-NTSC conversion and not officially in the U.K. until Radiance Film's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen Blu-ray that accompanies both the 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray and Blu-ray editions of The Inquisitor (it remains to be seen whether the standard editions will keep the two films together or if Deadly Circuit will remain exclusive to the limited edition). The Blu-ray transfer is derived from a 2016 2K restoration released on France on Blu-ray first by TF1 and then again last year by boutique label Rimini – both including a DVD copy of the film's television version which runs fifteen minutes shorter (taking into account PAL speedup) and only seems to exist as a standard definition master – and then last year stateside on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber. If the film looks softer and darker than the older The Inquisitor, it is because cinematographer Lhomme has a very different style than Nuytten, including some subtle diffusing filters – less "glamour treamtent" than part of Beuvoir's idealized vision of Catherine that holds up even under the flourescents of the hotel room climax – and rain-speckled glass or diaphanous materials between Adjani and both Serrault and the camera POV. The image is certainly clear enough to reveal that what initially looked like a scratch in one driving shot was actually a streak on the windshield and the more evenly-lit scenes allow one to gawk at the make-up job employed to make Audran look not just plain but ghastly in sharp contrast to her earlier work in disguise in Claude Chabrol's The Champagne Murders along with Marchand's hideously tacky tie and pimp shoes. 
Audio
The sole audio option on both discs of The Inquisitor is a French LPCM 1.0 24-bit mono track which has been meticulously cleaned, making more evident than before some of the interjections of Delerue's calliope theme low in the mix, underlining it as Chantal's theme before we even meet her. Optional English subtitles are free of errors.  Deadly Circuit features a French LPCM 1.0 mono track with a much more traditionally "noir" soundtrack by American jazz musician Carla Bley. Some dialogue is post-synched but apparently by the actors – this is one of those globe-hopping films where every character speaks French – while the sound design compared to The Inquisitor is more action-oriented than atmospheric including gunfire, razor slashes, heavy rain, planes taking off, crashes, and explosions (the sound effects for Audi vehicles in the film even get their own credit). Optional English subtitles are free of errors although one has to pay attention given Serrault's sometimes fast delivery (it first seemed that he added ten years to his daughter's age in the subtitles but he was actually talking about a point in the future). 
Extras
The Inquisitor's extras start with "Success Story: The Making of The Inquisitor" (34:28) is a retrospective documentary that accompanied the original TF1 Blu-ray release in which Miller (in archival video) notes that his second film in 1978 Tell Her That I Love Her was not successful and he was approached by producer Georges Dancigers (Le professionnel) who approached him about the "chamber piece" adding that he had heard that he was fifth or sixth after the likes of Costa-Gavras (Missing), Yves Boisset (The Common Man), and Robin Davis (Le choc) among others. He and his agent Jean-Louis Livi separately recall friction with Audiard and Serrault when he wanted to incorporate some more ideas from the source novel and that he thought some of the dialogue was "too Audiard." Other topics of discussion include Miller's preference for Ventura over the proposed casting of Yves Montand (The Wages of Fear), Miller's decision to shoot in the studio because he felt that real offices and police stations were uninteresting, and skepticism about whether Nuytten who shot on location and natural light could do a studio film and his use of "cold light" as well as Miller noting some input from his cinematographer brother-in-law Pierre-William Glenn (Terminus) while Miller's wife Annie and son Nathan also turn up to recall the shoot. There is also a 1981 Belgian television interview with director Claude Miller and co-screenwriter Michel Audiard (9:51) in which Miller describes the feature as a "commissioned film" while Audiard recalls bringing the book the project to the producer who then brought it to Miller. A 2016 appreciation by filmmaker Patrice Leconte (5:39) is a bit rambling in discussing how Miller's style demonstrates classicism without being old-fashioned. "Reverse Shot (Champ Contrechamp) on Crime Cinema" (52:01) is a 1981 French panel discussion with Miller, Audiard, Serrault, Alain Corneau, and screenwriter Pierre Fabre among others – including a current police commissioner in both his professional capacity and as a moviegoer – discussing the resurgence of crime films with the concurrent releases of The Inquisitor, Corneau's Choice of Arms, and the Fabre-scripted Birgitt Haas Must Be Killed in which Corneau describes the crime genre as having picked him while Miller is less interested in the genre than in the creation of suspense. The film's theatrical trailer (2:30) is also included.  Deadly Circuit is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historian Rachael Nisbet who reveals that Behm originally conceived the novel as a film treatment but could not get any Hollywood companies interested yet the novel was acclaimed both in the United States and in France where she argues its moral ambiguities register more with the French brand of "Polar" – a contraction of roman policier which is more of a blanket term rather than specifically referring to police procedurals (Nisbet thankfully goes into more specifics about the differences between American and French noir) – and that the theme of loss in the novel struck a chord with both Audiard who had lost one of his sons (and adapted the script with his son Jacques Audiard without any producer attached) as well as Serrault who had also lost one of his daughters in a road accident. Nisbet discusses the decision to cast Adjani over an unknown who Miller though initially would be more believable playing a chameleon of a character as well as the large budget of the production and its logistical issues, along with the careers of Adjani, Serrault, and particularly Miller who worked in different genres while exploring similar themes to his two crime films. "Sacred Circuit" (34:29) is a 2016 retrospective piece from the TF1 Blu-ray featuring interviews with co-scriptwriter Jacques Audiard, director of photography Lhomme, and producer Charles Gassot (Tatie Danielle). Audiard recalls knowledge of Serrault's loss and wondering if it would be appropriate to approach him when his father told him to take him the script, Lhomme recalls the shooting schedule and how the locations across countries meant that no schedules could be extended and they would either have to drop scenes or return to the location later at greater expense, as well as being in awe of the sets of Jean-Pierre Kohut-Svelko (The Last Metro) and the challenges of lighting them. Gassot recalls being young enough to be bold with the budget and the planning while also noting some of the issues that cropped up including Adjani having her passport confiscated at a border and having to stow away in a costume van. Annie Miller and Nathan Miller also appear briefly with the latter recalling along with Gassot the problems with the car stunt which the Paris official would not allow so it had to be shot in Belgium. "Hypnotic Fascination" (7:32) is an 2016 interview with filmmaker Philippe Le Guay (Bicycling with Molière) who uses the titular term in assessing the film's style and admitting to having been unable to perceive on screen signs that it was a troubled production. The disc also includes the theatrical trailer (3:10). 
Packaging
The three discs of the 4K set and the two discs of the Blu-ray set each come in a single full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings, a reversible cover and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Adam Scovell and an archival interview with Deadly Circuit producer Charles Gassot (none of which have been provided for review). 
Overall
Claude Miller worked in a variety of genres and his highly-successful The Inquisitor and accomplished but troubled production Deadly Circuit prove that he was a versatile director who could make his stylistic and thematic mark even in "commissioned" films. 
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