Details

Release year: 1978

Storyline

A sexually adventurous young woman approaches Antonio, an Italian art-restorer working at a cathedral in France. He resists getting involved with her but later he finds out she was raped and murdered in a derelict house.

Top credits

Directors

Jean-Pierre Mocky

Writers

Cast

Alberto Sordi — Antonio Berti
Philippe Noiret — Robert Maurisson
Roland Dubillard — Commissaire Guérin
Gisèle Préville — Louise Maurisson

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Did you know

• Jean-Pierre Mocky confessed that Alberto Sordi's character should have been played by Jean Gabin but Gabin died before the shooting of the movie started.

• Alberto Sordi's participation posed a problem: there was no death penalty in Italy, and scriptwriter Sergio Amidei had to find an ending that would be acceptable to Italian audiences. Two endings were thus created: Sordi's character is guillotined in the French version; whereas in the Italian version, only the death penalty is evoked, showing a flashback with a smiling Sordi having fun in Reims.

• The relationship during filming between Alberto Sordi and Philippe Noiret, playing the two main characters, was not good. Noiret said: "Le Témoin was filmed in difficult conditions partly because of Alberto Sordi who poisoned us. This actor, who is brilliant by the way, is unbearable like a capricious and jealous child. He wanted to be alone on the screen. Personally, I am not used to fighting to stay alone in the frame, it would humiliate me. If someone pushes me, I don't hold on to a piece of furniture so as not to go out of the shot! I must recognize Mocky's great tenacity in the face of Sordi's stubbornness. He managed to balance things out between us, but this kind of battle is painful." Sordi replied: "That was a film directed by a madman; I tried to take control of the situation to save us both. And if he thought I wanted to be the protagonist at all costs... Damn, and I think he's a great actor, a witty person."