Commissaire Bourrel and Inspecteur Dupuy, of the Police judiciaire, investigate in the world of comics.
Meurtre par la bande is an episode of the feature-length French detective series Les Cinq Dernières Minutes (1958-1996).
Created by journalist, director, scriptwriter and producer Claude Loursais, Les Cinq Dernières Minutes is one of the first series in the History of French television. It was launched on January 1, 1958 on the only channel of RTF (Radiodiffusion Télévision Française), the predecessor of ORTF (Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française). Les Cinq Dernières Minutes went through many changes in three "eras" until France 2 shown its 149th episode on December 20, 1996. The first era (1958-1973) was penned by Claude Loursais — who directed most of its episodes — with Fred Kassak, Louis C. Thomas, Michel Lebrun, Maurice-Bernard Endrèbe, Henri Grangé, André Maheux, Jean Cosmos, etc. This version starred Raymond Souplex as the gruff Inspecteur/Commissaire Antoine Bourrel and Jean Daurand as Inspecteur Dupuy.
Les Cinq Dernières Minutes began as a mystery gameshow aired live. Two selected viewers watched a whodunit, then Inspecteur Bourrel
asked them the solution and how to prove it with the possibility to
watch again two scenes. Les Cinq Dernières Minutes dropped live broadcasting and the game format to explore different socio-professional environments in episodes shot in studio on video and on 16mm film for the locations. The popularity of the programme peaked in the 1960s-1970s and turned Raymond Souplex and Jean Daurand into TV stars. Bourrel's catchphrase (« Bon Dieu, mais c'est bien sûr! ») entered the vernacular. The series was adapted in Germany (Dem Täter auf der Spur, 1967-1973). Les Cinq Dernières Minutes switched from black and white to colour in 1971.
Helmed by series boss Claude Loursais and penned by Louis C. Thomas with Michel Lebrun, Meurtre par la bande was aired on ORTF's Deuxième chaîne on May 4, 1972. Charny, an abstract painter, is found murdered in an old villa with a strange white mask on his face. Commissaire Bourrel meets Karine, his widow, and her friend Barbara. Bourrel and Dupuy share their perplexity when Doussard, a comic book fan, wants to see the commissaire. He affirms that the crime was inspired by a similar death in a magazine about a hit comic book heroine named Vampyra. Bourrel interrogates Giron, the cynical artist who draws her adventures, and Fontaine, the busy publisher of the magazine. Later Doussard is killed by someone masked as Vampyra. Commissaire Bourrel, who hates comics, must find answers in the creation of the character.
Louis C. Thomas and Michel Lebrun succeed in blending a good plot with an interesting insight into the comic book phenomenon in 1970s France. The scriptwriters did their homework, even mentioning the 1949 law on publications for young people. However, this "Documentaire social" aspect of Les Cinq Dernières Minutes (an insistence of Claude Loursais) sometimes comes heavily. Like in the comic book store where a professor of sociology gives an impromptu mini-conference for Bourrel. French comic book artist Jean-Marc Loreau (aka Loro) drew the pages of Vampyra especially for this episode where Bourrel tells his catchphrase in a balloon (1). Inspecteur Dupuy disappeared from Les Cinq Dernières after Meurtre par la bande because of Jean Daurand's health issues. The actor returned as Commissaire Dupuy in Brigade des Mineurs, the 1977-1979 social drama series created by Claude Loursais.
With Jean-Paul Tribout (Juju), André Oumansky (Charny), Claudine Coster (Karine), Paula Dehelly (Barbara), Mike Marshall (Undertaker), Patrick Lemaitre (Doussard), Jean-Claude Massoulier (Fontaine), Henri-Jacques Huet (Giron), Henri Serre (Maussac), Jean-Pierre Sentier (Comic book shop owner), Albert Simono (Professor of sociology), Louis Arbessier (Picquigny), etc. Produced by Oreste Delsale and Michèle Pietri. Main title theme composed by Marc Lanjean (2). Cinematography by André Diot. Video editing by Christiane Coutel. Film editing by Armand Leibovich. Following the death of Raymond Souplex in September 1972 and his final episodes, some new detectives were tested by Claude Loursais in four TV movies aired between July 1974 and January 1975 on the Deuxième chaîne and Antenne 2.
Les Cinq Dernières Minutes was relaunched on Antenne 2 in May 1975 with Jacques Debary (Commissaire Cabrol) and Marc Eyraud (Inspecteur Ménardeau). The duo bowed out in 1991, to be replaced by Pierre Santini (Un juge, un flic) as Commissaire Julien Massard and Pierre Hoden (Inspecteur Antoine Barrier) from 1992 to 1996. The episodes of Les Cinq Dernières Minutes from 1958 to 1991 and Brigade des mineurs are available on Madelen, the streaming service of INA. The Cabrol-Ménardeau era was shown in Germany on ZDF as Kommissar Cabrol ermittelt - Die Fälle des Monsieur Cabrol.
(1) Meurtre par la bande is retrospectively compared to The Winged Avenger, an episode of The Avengers which was shown in France only the following year.
(2) Arsenic Blues, actually composed by Marc Lanjean for the movie La Peau de l'ours (1957).
Les Cinq Dernières Minutes and Raymond Souplex on this blog:
