Critic Reviews

An enticingly nasty little crime film in which all pleasures go sour before they can be enjoyed, it is ripe for rediscovery in Rialto's fine restoration, and will be many Americans' first encounter with star Patrick Dewaere, whose funny, bracingly strange turn here was among his last.

The characterisations are turned on their heads.

Serie Noire,' adapted by Mr. Corneau and Georges Perec from ''A Hell of a Woman'' by the late Jim Thompson, takes itself much too seriously, as is the way with humorless French adapters of American fiction of this sort.