Tonight, W9 proposes to find the late Jean-Paul Belmondo in one of his most famous thrillers, Fear of the city by Henri Verneuil. A film that contains some of Bébel’s most famous stunts, some of which have earned him some injuries.
In 1974, Jean-Paul Belmondo is at the height of his popularity. With his best rival, Alain Delon, he has just triumphed in Borsalino. In solo, he has chained several popular hits like The bride and groom of the year II by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, The heist by Henri Verneuil and The magnificent by Philippe de Broca. However, he has just suffered his first failure in a long time with Stavisky by Alain Resnais. More than its box office (the film still brings together more than a million spectators in theaters), it is the freshness of its reception at the Cannes Film Festival that cures any desire of the actor to venture into the author cinema. He therefore decides to return to a more commercial genre, the detective film, and to re-team with Henri Verneuil, one of his favorite directors. In Fear over the city, written by the filmmaker and spoken to by Francis Veber, Bébel plays Commissioner Letellier, determined to get his hands on Minos, a psychopathic killer who attacks women he considers too libertine and terrorizes the capital.
Jean-Paul Belmondo injured on the set
This spectacular film will forge the reputation of the daredevil Belmondo, through three sequences that will remain in everyone’s memories. The first is the chase between Letellier and Minos on the roofs of Paris. It requires the reconstruction of 400m2 of zinc roofing, above the Galeries Lafayette. While filming this scene, the one who shared the life of Italian actress Laura Antonelli at the time gets injured for the first time. Hanging from a gutter, he fractures his right hand. It is also subject to a few cuts following its fall through a canopy. After this mad pursuit, the character of Letellier sets out on the heels of the gangster Marcucci (played by the Italian actor Giovanni Cianfriglia) in the Paris metro. An incredible scene follows where Jean-Paul Belmondo clings to the roof of the train, passing through the tunnels of the metro line 6 before coming out on the Bir-Hakeim bridge and standing on the wagon, during the aerial portion of the line.
Jean-Paul Belmondo: an unforgettable waterfall
It took 3 weeks of shooting, between midnight and 5 a.m., when the undergrounds are closed to the public, to put this memorable scene in a box. The metro train was traveling at 60 km / h when the actor was on his roof, but it was repeated for several days, at a slower speed. Finally remains the final scene, the one where Jean-Paul Belmondo descends by helicopter to the windows of the tower block, in which the character of Minos is entrenched. The film crew had to deal with the wind and the Paris police headquarters, which demanded that the tower be empty during filming. Some shots of this sequence were filmed on a subjective camera by Bébel himself. The gendarmes we see rappelling from the helicopter are real gendarmes, from a new unit created two years earlier: the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN).
Fear of the city, a poster that has remained as famous as the film
Fear over the city released in theaters on April 9, 1975, the very day of the birthday of Jean-Paul Belmondo, who then celebrated his 42 years. Henri Verneuil’s film remained at the top of the Paris box office for six weeks and became the second most viewed feature film of that year 1975 with a total of almost 4 million admissions, just behind The infernal tower by John Guillermin. The film poster also remained famous with an all-black Belmondo, the apparent holster, in a pose reminiscent of Steve McQueen’s on the poster of his film. Bullitt (1968). Director Quentin Dupieux will wink at Fear over the city with the poster of his film At office ! in 2018, Benoît Poelvoorde taking over the outfit and the pose of Belmondo.
