We Are All Murderers

Written and directed by André Cayatte, the 1952 French-Italian drama Nous sommes tous des assassins (We Are All Murderers) follows René, a young man raised in the slums who was trained by the French Resistance during World War II to kill Germans. Long after the war ends he keeps on killing, because violence is the only skill he has ever learned. When he is finally brought to trial and faces the death penalty, the film turns into a powerful argument for the abolition of capital punishment in France, a cause typical of Cayatte's legal-themed work. Shot at the Boulogne Studios in Paris with sets designed by Jacques Colombier, the film stars Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin and Claude Laydu. It was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Prize.