This is a French murder mystery, sometimes marketed in English as Widow’s Walk, which is the name of the source novel.
Wait – the source novel has an English title? Yup. Not only that, it was written in English by an American, namely Andrew Coburn. The French loved this guy more than Jerry Lewis! Although no filmmaker showed any interest in adapting any of his stories into a film in English, three of his novels were adapted into French films. Go figure.
The movie’s premise:
On his return to the French Atlantic coast, Inspector Paul Molinat has to solve a mysterious series of murders with the help of the ambitious Inspector Leroyer. Several bodies are washed up on the beach with gunshot wounds.
For the record, here’s a description of the novel:
The setting is Boar’s Bluff, a seaside resort town in New England in which a widowed police chief is faced with a series of murders that upset the town, the local political operator, and a state police lieutenant. Central to the plot are three widows who rent a large beach cottage from the chief’s girlfriend. An assortment of eccentric and sometimes mean-spirited characters fills the landscape. Many of them have slept with one another. The chief handles the investigation in a laid-back manner, seldom following protocol, and seeming to spend most of his time walking morosely on the beach.
OK, now I get why the French like his work so much. What could be more French than having the detective solve the case by walking morosely on the beach? I presume he was chain-smoking.
Anne Roussel
Gabrielle Lazure
Marie Trintignant
