Long a proponent of Hitchcock and author of the best book about the legendary director, it's only fitting that François Truffaut's final film serve as homage to the Master of Suspense. After filming The Woman Next Door, Truffaut wanted to cast his lover, Fanny Ardant, as a lead in a crime thriller because he felt she had the ideal look for a film noir heroine, so he adapted Charles Williams' novel, Vivement Dimanche! (Confidentially Yours) into a screenplay. What he liked most about the story was the opportunity to have Ardant conduct the police investigation, but he felt his screenplay lacked credibility. His lover, on the other hand, found it amusing and plays the overlooked genre piece in a lightweight tone reminiscent of Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery while Truffaut borrows heavily from Hitchcock motifs and themes.

Truffaut doesn't have the same psychological hang-ups that Hitch does, and knowingly casts brunette Ardant as the self-assured all-purpose secretary Barbara Becker, who dedicates herself to absolving her middle-aged boss, Julien Vercel (Jean Louis Trintignant of A Man and a Woman), of multiple murder charges. Hitchcockian blondes are referenced as the exclusive choice for prostitutes.

Trintignant, who plays a confident magistrate in Costa-Gavras' Z, is nothing of the sort this time. Wrapping his character with an Everyman blandness, Truffaut paints him initially as a cuckold without passion who calmly assures his cheating wife that he never gets mad. In one sense he becomes Jimmy Stewart's Rear Window character, essentially trapped inside his real estate office for much of the film, voyeuristically peering outside the translucent windowpanes at passing legs (another clever Hitchcock reference). Meanwhile Ardant takes on Grace Kelly's more assertive role by serving as Trintignant's "legs," likewise beginning to appeal to her boss much more by facing the dangers on his behalf.

Adopting Hitch's favorite theme of wrongly accusing an innocent man of murder, Truffaut also borrows heavily from Hitchcock's vast camera repertoire to create suspense. Using camera angles as deftly as the Master's overhead shots in Psycho and low angle shots in Strangers on a Train, the legendary French director obscures the identity of the killer, creates multiple suspects, and makes the audience work to clarify the facts. Details are always important to crime thrillers, so the simple act of shutting the car door of the murder victim in the opening sequence is not overlooked. Neither are memorable phrases from crank phone calls or mysterious words on envelopes--each puzzle piece adding to the excitement and intensity.

Truffaut inserts a small homage to Stanley Kubrick as well by inserting the film Paths of Glory, which was banned in France for "undermining army morale," into the plot. Truffaut had taken a controversial anti-military stance in his 1958 review of Kubrick's film, and he increases the film's prominence by having the film serve as a plot revealing vehicle and highlighting the nature of its romance. Actually it has none, but the cinema cashier points out that the soldiers in the film do carry pictures of their lovers--so Truffaut even finds a way to warm up Kubrick's cold reputation.

Ardant carries the stylized film capably, and despite his reservations about the screenplay, Truffaut appears to be having fun with this fast paced black and white film, capturing much of Hitchcock's spirit while retaining his characteristic intimacy and obvious love of women. Truffaut could never resolve a film like this with a Jimmy Stewart character that falls asleep under the watchful eye of his lover or loses his love (á la Vertigo)--he playfully acknowledges the Master while retaining his own sensibilities. Beyond his obsession for detail and natural cynicism, Truffaut is a true romantic. Vivement Dimanche! supplies a glimpse into the New Wave auteur's versatility. Had he lived longer, no doubt Truffaut would have continued to experiment in additional directions.