The Outside Man

Perfect casting for Trintignant as a French hitman imported to America and efficiently executing his contract, only to discover that there appears to be a contract out on him. Deray's thrillers often go sadly astray, but this one was co-scripted by Jean-Claude Carrière (Buñuel's latter-day collaborator), and wittily fashions a dark variation on Through the Looking-Glass out of the hit man's bafflement as he becomes the hunted in a country where he doesn't understand the language (the dialogue is in English, with occasional subtitled French) and where tribal customs seem alarmingly bizarre. Los Angeles becomes the quirky central character, and although Dickinson is rather wasted, there are memorable supporting performances from Ann-Margret, Scheider, Engel and de Corsia (the latter summarily rubbed out as subject of the contract, but presiding - embalmed and seated on a funeral parlour throne) over a shootout at his own wake.