Mon 2 Jul 2012
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: NUDE IN A WHITE CAR (1958).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[7] Comments
NUDE IN A WHITE CAR. Champs-Élysées Productions, French, 1958. Original title: Toi … le venin. Also released as Blonde in a White Car. Robert Hossein, Marina Vlady, Odile Versois, Héléna Manson. Based on the novel C’est toi le venin… by Frédéric Dard. Director: Robert Hossein.
Back when I was a teenager in Columbus, Ohio, one of the local TV stations seemed like kind of a slap-dash affair, particularly on weekends, when the station was apparently run by the town drunk and the village idiot, and anything might turn up in the afternoon or late at night, regardless of what was listed in the paper.
What did turn up generally started at the wrong time and, if it was a movie, came on cut to ribbons, flickering across the little black-and-white screen like a bruised and battered prize-fighter trying to hold up to the last round.
I particularly recall one Sunday when a Fritz Lang movie was supposed to start at 2:30 PM. Knowing how things were on Channel Six and not wanting to miss any, I tuned in at two o’clock and was treated to thirty minutes of silent footage showing a kid hitting a paddle-ball, followed by the movie promptly starting at 2:30—with the first thirty minutes cut out! Such were weekends at Channel Six.
So I don’t know if they ever actually showed Nude in a White Car, but they listed it in the paper every six weeks or so, always on a Sunday night/Monday morning at 1 AM, which was quite beyond the viewing grasp of the High School kid I was back in the 60s.
And I can best leave to your imagination the effect those words Nude in a White Car in tiny print buried in the Sunday Paper TV section had on the fantasies of a tawdry youth like myself. Suffice it to say that the film became something of an obsession with me, and I finally found a DVD of it last year, nearly a half-century after those thrilling days of yesteryear.
Well, I wasn’t expecting a great deal, and I found the movie (titled Toi, le venin, which loosely translates to “You, Venom!”) rather a mixed bag, with an edgy, hard-boiled attitude, a fascinating premise and somewhat slack execution.
The premise: Pierre (Robert Hossein) an out-of-work “celebrity” walking the beach at Nice one night gets picked up by the eponymous babe. Following a dark-and-steamy encounter, she forces him from the car at gunpoint, then tries to run him down.
Well we’ve all had relationships like that, but Pierre is determined to repay the favor. He tracks down the car to an elegant mansion shared by two wealthy half-sisters, Helene and Eva (Odile Versois and Marina Vlady): both blonde, both beautiful and both obviously interested in getting to know him better.
Which is the one from the car? Well one has been in a wheelchair since she was a teenager and the other just doesn’t seem the type, so it’s Pierre who must get to know them better, then decide what form his retribution will take.
Up to this point, Nude has been tense, amoral, riveting and sexy. But it soon degenerates into merely sexy as Pierre literally dicks around trying to decide which sister he can trust and which one is a psycho who tried to kill him.
After awhile, even the sexy bits pale (this was filmed in 1958 after all) and all we get is a domestic triangle, with the attempted murder pushed way in the background. It all gets a bit wearisome, but I have to say the ending is a shocker that caught me off-guard, grimly poetic and just plain nasty, and it’s worth getting around to.

July 2nd, 2012 at 10:51 am
This a movie new to me, and of course it’s already on my want list.
The author’s name, though, rang a faint bell, not one loud enough to place it at once, but then again, that’s what Google is for.
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Dard
“[Frédéric Dard] is one of the most famous French crime novels writers of the second half of the 20th century. He was also one of the most prolific, since he wrote more than 300 novels throughout his career. […]
“[He] wrote 173 adventures of San-Antonio, of which millions of copies were sold.”
San-Antonio is a French police lieutenant and also the pseudonym under which Dard wrote the novels. Less than a dozen have been translated into English. In the US most of these were published by Paperback Library in the early 1970s.
July 4th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Really interesting review, Dan! Needless to say, this is a movie previously unknown to me. I especially enjoyed the bit of autobiographical detail. I can well imagine what effect that title might have had on a red-blooded high school boy. Probably just as well you didn’t see it then, as you likely would have been disappointed by how far it fell form the pedestal upon which your imagination placed it.
September 28th, 2012 at 1:51 am
Hi Dan. I’ve been dying to get my hands on a copy of this film. Where did you find it???
September 28th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I’ve replied to Chip with the name of one vendor who has a copy. I’ll do the same for any one else who asks.
April 23rd, 2013 at 5:45 pm
I would also like to know where I can find this film. I’ve been looking for ages!
April 23rd, 2013 at 9:25 pm
Carbine
I’ve just sent you the name of a vendor who should still have a copy.
December 7th, 2014 at 2:12 am
I just watched this film which was part of the recent French film noir festival(The French Had a Name For It). It was a family affair as the male lead was married to one of the female leads plus the two sisters were sisters in real life.