Synopsis
The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartiment tueurs, 1965) is a French mystery thriller you can watch online on iFILM. An overnight train pulls into Paris from Marseille, and a young woman turns up dead in her sleeping berth.
Five passengers shared that compartment with the victim, and Inspector Grazzi works through their stories one by one. Then the witnesses start dying too. With every body, the list of people who can explain that night gets shorter. The cast reads like a roll call of 1960s French cinema: Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Michel Piccoli and a fresh-faced Jacques Perrin.
This was Costa-Gavras' very first feature, made five years before he reinvented the political thriller with Z. The restless cutting and tight control of a confined setting are already on display. Adapted from a novel by Sébastien Japrisot, it's a lean, fast whodunit with no fat on it. A treat for anyone who likes a closed-circle puzzle solved at speed. Stream The Sleeping Car Murders (1965) online on iFILM.
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