Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 16, 2025

Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of the Wicked Games: Three Films by Robert Hossein set from Radiance Films.

As an actor, Robert Hossein is probably best remembered on this side of the pond for his supporting role in Jules Dassin's iconic Rififi, but as a so-called "multi-hyphenate" he had a rather interesting career as both a writer and director, including the three films Radiance has aggregated in this appealing new collection. The set includes The Wicked Go to Hell, Hossein's debut as director and (co-)writer, which came out in 1955, the same year as Rififi. After a 1956 effort called Pardonnez nos offences, Hossein took on sole writing credit in addition to directing with 1959's Nude in a White Car (as it's titled here, though there are multiple variant titles, including the original French Toi, le venin). Two other interstitial films, 1959's Double Agents and 1960's Les scélérats, appeared before the final film offered in this triptych, 1961's The Taste of Violence. Two of the three films in this set, as well as some of Hossein's other efforts, are based on novels by Frédéric Dard.

If The Wicked Go to Hell kind of intentionally subverted genre expectations, Nude in a White Car is probably ostensibly more straightforward, though in its own way it's quite provocative. The film begins with a loner named Pierre Menda (Robert Hossein, here assuming the central starring role in addition to this other duties) wandering the beach and then isolated streets in what seems to be the middle of the night. An imposing white Cadillac pulls up next to him at one point, and a blonde whose face can't be made out offers him a ride (apparently in more than one way, in a wonderfully discursive and yet entirely clear vignette). When she later pretty much just boots him out and leaves him by the side of the road (talk about switching "traditional" gender roles, at least in films), Pierre becomes obsessed with who she is, and sets out to investigate.

That then leads to the central mystery of the film, as Pierre uses his knowledge of the car to track down lookalike sisters Hélène (Odile Versois) and Eva Lecain (Marina Vlady), though the fact that Eva is ostensibly paralyzed would seem to point to Hélène as the one night stand culprit. Of course things are considerably more complex, and the film is really as much about the convoluted three way relationship as it is about who was actually driving the car. The film has some fascinating "meta" content courtesy of the fact that Versois and Vlady were real life sisters and Vlady was married to Hossein at the time.

Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nude in a White Car is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Radiance Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Radiance's insert booklet lumps the three films together for pretty minimal information on the provenance of the transfers:

Each film in this collection was restored in 2K by Gaumont. Additional colour correction was applied to The Taste of Violence by Radiance for this release. The films were supplied to Radiance Films as digital files and are presented in the original aspect ratio.

Things are just a little iffy looking at the very beginning of this transfer due to extreme low light and optically printed credits, but one things segue to the main story, clarity improves markedly and grain becomes much more tightly resolved. Both an abundance of outdoor material as well as a surplus of well lit scenes redound to the benefit of fine detail levels throughout. Contrast is appealing, and the opening vignette documenting the "pick up" in the Cadillac offers some impressively deep blacks and almost blazing whites like the shock of blonde hair of the driver. It's perhaps instructive to note how whites and blacks are utilized in the production design, and the secure contrast helps to elevate that perhaps subliminal element.

Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Nude in a White Car features another nice sounding LPCM Mono track in the original French. In a kind of cheekily comical moment, Marina Vlady mentions in her interview how Robert often sold his films as a "package", with her presumed involvement in what she calls a "family affair", and that seems to have included Hossein's father André (working under the pseudonym André Gosselain), here offering another really well considered score, this one suitably minor inflected and drenched in sax. Ambient environmental effects are well rendered in several outdoor scenes. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Tim Lucas


• Marina Vlady (HD; 8:34) is a 2019 interview with the actress, who discusses the film and Robert Hossein. Subtitled in English.


• The Evolution of the Femme Fatale in Classic French Cinema (HD; 16:39) is an interesting visual essay by Samm Deighan.


• Trailer (HD; 2:38)

Nude in a White Car Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The "climax" of this film may be somewhat curiously tamped down considering the histrionic subtext that pervades the almost What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? adjacent relationship between the sisters in this film. It's notable that the original French title of Dard's source novel translates more or less to You're the Poison, without overtly clarifying who is referenced by the titular pronoun. A certain degree of ambiguity may therefore be sacrificed in this film version, but this is a fun, twisty tale that shows off several extended Hossein family members to very good advantage. Technical merits are solid and the supplements very interesting and well done. Recommended.