With ‘Inspecteur Lavardin‘ (1986), Claude Chabrol followed in the footsteps of the success of the film ‘Cop au vin’ made the year before, bringing back to the center of the story the same character that gives the film its title. The bet was won, as the second film also enjoyed success with the public and is not inferior to the first, except perhaps for the lack of surprise due to the character of the very unconventional police inspector Jean Lavardin. But Chabrol also links this film to the beginnings of his career as a director and screenwriter, recruiting two of the actors who had appeared in his first film, ‘Le beau Serge’ from 1958, and in several of the films that followed. The two are Jean-Claude Brialy and Bernadette Lafont, here in the roles of brother and sister belonging to the provincial bourgeoisie, Chabrol‘s favorite collective character and also the target of his social satires.
When Lavardin arrives in a small oceanside town to investigate a sordid murder (body of a stabbed man discovered completely naked on a beach), he is in for a surprise. The victim’s wife is the woman who had broken his heart twenty years before, leaving him without any explanation. The recent widow could also be a potential suspect, as she was on a second marriage, and her first husband had also mysteriously disappeared, lost at sea together with her brother’s wife. But we already know Lavardin, and we know that such a conflict of personal interests does not stop him either from the investigation or from enjoying the hospitality of his ex-girlfriend and recent widow, who lives in a sumptuous villa with her brother and teenage daughter. Each of the residents of the villa seems to hide a closet full of secrets. Gradually, Lavardin will discover that things were the same with the victim, a famous writer, author of books that preached Catholic morality. He had led a double life and given many of those he met reasons to kill him.
‘Inspecteur Lavardin‘ is a ‘whodunit’. Lavardin even has an assistant he calls Watson who is the local policeman. However, the police plot is unusual because of the main character, but mostly because of the outcome. Jean Poiret reprises his role from the previous film, and Bernadette Lafont remains discreet and mysterious. The most interesting role is played by Jean-Claude Brialy as the widow’s brother. In the role of the teenage daughter appears Hermine Clair, a beautiful and talented actress, who decided not to continue her film career (I don’t know the reasons), this being the only movie in her filmography. However, ‘Inspecteur Lavardin‘ stays in the memory of the viewers, especially through the very special ending. Claude Chabrol is often compared to Hitchcock because of his moral judgments on his characters, which the Anglo-American master also did, but always made them as if in passing and with a smile on his face. Here, however, we are dealing with a very special interpretation of the expression ‘Justice was served’. I wonder what Hitchcock would have said and if he would have dared to include such an outcome in the script of any of his films.