L'Oeil Du Malin (aka The Third Lover) (1962)

A French journalist (Jacques Charrier) is working on an assignment in a small German village just outside Munich. When a famous German writer (Walter Reyer, THE TIGER OF ESCHNAPUR) and his French wife (Stephane Audran) take him under their wing and befriend him, he becomes envious of their life and love of each other and plots to destroy them. Directed by Claude Chabrol, this is an unsettling and disturbing film. Early on, it becomes clear that the film's protagonist is a psychologically disturbed young man and Pierre Jansen's dissonant score clues us in that this will not end happily. Chabrol was one of the earliest of the French New Wave directors along with Truffaut and Godard with films like LE BEAU SERGE and LES COUSINS. But in the 1960s, he began to focus on psychological thrillers in the style of Hitchcock, although distinctly his own and this film is one of the earliest examples. In many ways, it's a difficult film to watch. Why would anyone want to betray an act of kindness with treachery? Robbed of any sympathy for Charrier's self described loser (his failure in life accounts for his actions), one watches with dread as it spirals into a tragedy for all involved. With Daniel Boulanger and Erika Tweer.