Les Durs à cuire

Subtitled, roughly, "how to do away with your neighbor without losing your appetite," Les Durs à cuire is a French production that blends dark comedy with a thriller sensibility. It was directed by Jack Pinoteau from a script by Jacques Emmanuel, with Pathé Production behind it. The cast brings together well-known period performers such as Jean Poiret, Marcel Achard, Mireille Darc, Stéphane Audran and Roger Pierre, alongside Michel Serrault and Claude Chabrol, already established as a director, who appears here as an actor.

As its subtitle suggests, the film treats the subject of murder with a light, tongue-in-cheek touch rather than as straight drama. Released in 1964, it belongs to a wave of French pictures from the period that mixed crime elements with comic tone.