Made In U.S.A. (1966)

A female detective (Anna Karina) is investigating the death of her ex-lover. The complicated case takes various twists and turns until the murderer is exposed. Loosely (very loosely) based on an unauthorized (which accounts for the film not being available in the U.S. for many years) adaptation of THE JUGGER by Donald Westlake and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Godard dedicates his film to Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller "who taught me to respect image and sound". And that's all his MADE IN U.S.A. is about really, image and sound. Its incoherent plot makes Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP seem crystal clear! The film is shot in bright Technicolor hues of vivid reds, pastel blues and deep yellows and crammed with cinematic, literary and political references. Characters have names like Nixon and Robert McNamara, Mizoguchi (as in Kenji), Aldrich (as in Robert) and Widmark (as in Richard), ladies are called Daisy Kenyon (a Joan Crawford film) and Ruby Gentry (a Jennifer Jones film) and there are streets called Preminger (as in Otto) or Ben Hecht (the screenwriter). It's more about Godard's love of cinema as anything else though there are political references liberally peppered through out the film but it's mostly crackpot politics having to do with Godard's disillusionment with Communism. But made during Godard's most fertile period, it demands to be seen. With Jean Pierre Leaud and Marianne Faithfull.