In the fifteen plus year period between her roles in Jean Rollin's The Escapees and Two Orphan Vampires, Brigitte Lahaie maintained a fairly prolific pace in French Cinema and television. About five years after The Escapees failed to captivate audiences, Lahaie shot one of her most intriguing productions away from Rollin, the cheesy but fun L'exécutrice. Available on DVD outside of the US (as well as being available via a fan-subtitled version on the web) L'exécutrice has yet to find an official American release so I thought I would present some screenshots of Brigitte in the film for fellow devotees here.
L'exécutrice is a fairly routine police-based action thriller centered on a young detective named Martine, played by Lahaie, who is attempting to track down a young girl who has been kidnapped by a seedy gang of pornographers. Even though it is directed fairly-well by adult-filmmaker Michel Caputo, L'exécutrice would probably be mostly forgettable if it wasn't for Lahaie, who is both compelling and convincing in the lead. Caputo and Lahaie had worked on numerous adult productions before L'exécutrice and they both seem to be relishing the opportunity here to step out of the box and make something altogether unexpected for either of them. L'exécutrice benefits greatly from the stylish cinematography of Gérard Simon, an artist who has gone on to a lot of varied work in France, and is drenched with that Cinema-du-look feel that was so in vogue by the mid-eighties. L'exécutrice might be fairly by-the-numbers but it's fun and fans of Brigitte Lahaie will get quite a kick out of seeing her play a part that could have been written for Alain Delon or even Clint Eastwood had this been an American production.
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