The Caillaux Case

Paris, 1914: a marble foyer becomes a crimson stage when Henriette Caillaux, gloved in dove-gray, fires six silver bullets into Le Figaro’s editor, Gaston Calmette. The echo ricochets through Belle Époque salons, rattling stock-ticker tape and diplomatic pouches alike. Adrian Johnson’s screenplay spirals outward from the smoking Browning, stitching a labyrinth of coded telegrams, vanished ledgers, and velvet bribes that link Joseph Caillaux’s finance ministry to Berlin’s war chest. In chiaroscuro parlors, ministers barter secrets like love notes; in moonlit basements, typists transcribe treason in lavender ink. The trial—part opera, part autopsy—unfurls with the gusto of a Grand Guignol matinee: Norma McCloud’s Henriette, poised between Medea and martyr, claims passion’s privilege while silk-hatted spies squirm on the stand. Eugene Ormonde’s Caillaux, a panther in white tie, trades smiles for shredded dossiers. Emile La Croix’s Calmette, resurrected in flashback, haunts newsrooms like a guttering projector bulb. By the time the jury retires, the Republic itself sits in the dock, its colonial medals tarnished by whispers of a double indemnity with the Kaiser. Verdict or no, the film leaves the audience clutching a rusted moral compass, its needle quivering between adultery and high treason.