Le Jeu de la vérité (1961)
Directed by Robert Hossein

Film Review

As well as being one of the busiest actors of his generation (with around 150 stage and screen credits to his name), Robert Hossein was also a prolific director, although the films he made for the cinema are generally not well regarded and are considered pretentious and theatrical. This is certainly true of Hossein's seventh feature, Le Jeu de la vérité, a whodunit that could not be more blithely self-conscious if it had been directed by Michelangelo Antonioni whilst in the grip of a severe mid-life crisis.

As with Hossein's subsequent feature Les Scélérats (1959), the surfeit of style ends up totally smothering the narrative and the result is a langurously paced, lumbering affair that is as smug as it is charmless. Thankfully, Hossein has at his disposal a respectable quorum of high class actors - Jean Servais, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Louis Trintignant - who can be relied upon to prevent this from being a total disaster. In spite of a ludicrous plot, the performances hold our attention and serve as an effective palliative to Hossein's directorial preening. Watching a Robert Hossein film is like attending one of those ghastly cheese and wine parties at which self-loving non-entities stand about elegantly quaffing fizzy plonk whilst radiating the self-belief that they are the acme of the evolutionary process. At least this one has a fairly tasty finger buffet, but the urge to run a way and vomit is hard to contain.

Film Synopsis

One evening, a group of society friends gather to attend a party.  Their host suggests they play a game of confessions, in which each guest reveals some unknown truths about him or herself.  In the course of the increasingly heated verbal exchanges, a man is murdered after having tried to blackmail his fellow guests.  A police inspector appears unexpectedly on the doorstep and immediately takes charge of the situation.  The game of truth has only just begun...