{{short description|1970 film by Claude Chabrol}} {{For|the surname|Leboucher}} {{Italic title}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}} {{Infobox film | name = Le Boucher | image = Leboucher.jpg
| caption = French film poster | director = Claude Chabrol | producer = André Génovès | writer = Claude Chabrol | narrator = | starring = Stéphane Audran<br />Jean Yanne | music = Pierre Jansen | cinematography = Jean Rabier | editing = Jacques Gaillard | studio = {{plainlist|* Les Films La Boétie * Euro International Films}} | distributor = | released = {{Film date|1970|02|27|France|1970|9|8|Italy}} | runtime = 93 minutes | country = France<br />Italy | language = French }} '''''Le Boucher''''' ('The Butcher') is a 1970 psychological thriller film written and directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Stéphane Audran and Jean Yanne. Set in the village of Trémolat, it tells the story of butcher Popaul who falls in love with Hélène, the head teacher of the school, while a murder spree is taking place in the area.
It was a French and Italian co-production between the Paris-based Les Films La Boétie and the Rome-based Euro International Films.<ref name="FT-16" />
==Plot== Butcher Popaul and Hélène, the head teacher of the village school, become acquainted at the assistant teacher's wedding. He tells her that he had served in the army for 15 years as a means of getting away from his father, of whom he speaks disdainfully. During the next few weeks, the two repeatedly meet and spend time together, but always on a strictly platonic level. While gathering mushrooms together, Popaul asks Hélène why she is not in a relationship, to which she explains an unhappy love affair years ago that took her months to recover from. In return, Popaul tells her about the awful things he witnessed in Indochina and the Algerian war.
Soon after the news of the murder of a young woman reaches the town, a second victim, the assistant teacher's wife, is discovered by Hélène and her pupils during a school excursion. At the murder site, Hélène finds a conspicuous cigarette lighter that she had given to Popaul as a present. Instead of informing the police, she hides it in a drawer in her home. When she meets Popaul the next time, he lights her cigarette with a lighter that looks exactly like the one she had given him. Relieved, Hélène believes that the lighter she found was not his.
Hélène agrees to Popaul's offer to repaint her room, which he does while she is out. While looking for a cloth to clean up with, he discovers the hidden lighter and pockets it. When Hélène finds the lighter gone after he has left, she realises that he knows she can identify him as the murderer. Seeing Popaul from her window, she locks the doors, but he has already entered the house. Popaul, cornering her at knife point, tells her that he had bought an identical lighter after losing the first one and explains what drives him to commit the murders. Convinced that he will stab her, Hélène closes her eyes, but Popaul thrusts the knife into his own abdomen instead.
While she drives him to the hospital, Popaul tells the crying Hélène about all the blood he has seen and confesses that he loved her and only wished to be with her. Upon their arrival, he asks her to kiss him, which she does. Shortly after, he dies. The last images show Hélène standing on the riverbank with blank eyes.
==Cast== * Stéphane Audran as Hélène Daville * Jean Yanne as Paul Thomas, known as Popaul * Roger Rudel as Inspector Grumbach
==Production== Chabrol had initially planned to shoot the film in the commune of Les Eyzies, but finally decided to shoot in Trémolat, as he wanted a village with prehistoric caves in the vicinity but found Les Eyzies too touristic.<ref name="interviews">{{cite book|title=Claude Chabrol: Interviews |editor-last=Beach |editor-first=Christopher |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |year=2020 |isbn=9781496826756}}</ref>{{page needed|date=October 2025}} The sites where shooting took place were mostly left unchanged, including the local butcher shop which served as the shop of Popaul.<ref name="interviews" />
==Release== ''Le Boucher'' was released in France on 27 February 1970,<ref name="FT-16">{{cite book|title=French Thrillers of the 1970s: Volume I, Crime Films|publisher=McFarland & Company|ISBN=978-1-4766-8681-3|LCCN=2025048366|first1=Roberto|last1=Curti|first2=Frank|last2=Lafond|year=2026|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|p=16}}</ref> In France, it had almost 1,150,000 spectators which the authors of ''French Thrillers of the 1970s: Volume I, Crime Films'' described as being a "good commercial success.<ref>{{cite book|title=French Thrillers of the 1970s: Volume I, Crime Films|publisher=McFarland & Company|ISBN=978-1-4766-8681-3|LCCN=2025048366|first1=Roberto|last1=Curti|first2=Frank|last2=Lafond|year=2026|location=Jefferson, North Carolina|p=20}}</ref> It was released in Italy on September 8, 1970 as ''Il tagliagole''.<ref name="FT-16" />
On 12 September 1970, it was screened at the New York Film Festival.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/14/archives/screen-chabrol-examines-a-very-delicate-balancele-boucher-stars-his.html |title=Screen: Chabrol Examines a Very Delicate Balance:'Le Boucher' Stars His Wife as Schoolteacher |date=14 September 1970 |work=The New York Times |access-date=10 May 2023 |last=Canby |first=Vincent|authorlink=Vincent Canby}}</ref>
Paris-based Tamasa Distribution is set to release "Première Vague" a collection of Blu-ray discs of seven early films by Chabrol. The box set is set for release in France on November 18, 2025. ''Variety'' reported that it would include films that were "long unavailable" to the public, including ''The Butcher''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://variety.com/2025/film/global/tamasa-distribution-claude-chabrol-lumiere-festival-mifc-1236550899/|work=Variety|title=Tamasa Distribution Readies Blu-Ray Box Set Release of Claude Chabrol's 'Première Vague' Collection, Presenting Restored Works By Claude Autant-Lara, Claire Devers (Exclusive)|accessdate=October 15, 2025|date=October 13, 2025|last=Meza|first=Ed|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20251015141621/https://variety.com/2025/film/global/tamasa-distribution-claude-chabrol-lumiere-festival-mifc-1236550899/|archivedate=October 15, 2025}}</ref>
==Reception== After its presentation at the New York Film Festival, Vincent Canby of ''The New York Times'' wrote a thoroughly sympathetic review of ''Le Boucher'', comparing the film's "romantic realism" with Alfred Hitchcock's ''Spellbound'' and Fritz Lang's ''Scarlet Street'' and titling it "the most elegant, most sorrowful of Chabrol's recent films", excelled only by his ''The Unfaithful Wife''.<ref name="nyt" /> In the January–February 1972 edition of the ''Los Angeles Free Press'', critic Dick Lochte called ''Le Boucher'' the best of the director's films so far, "a wonderfully controlled psychological thriller" and "a compact, hard, bright jewel of a movie", praising, like Canby, actors Audran and Yanne.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28039960 |title=Chabrol's Le Boucher |date=28 January – 3 February 1972 |volume=9 |issue=393 |work=Los Angeles Free Press |access-date=10 May 2023 |last=Lochte |first=Dick}}</ref>
==Awards== * 1970: Silver Shell for Best Actress at the 18th San Sebastián International Film Festival for Stéphane Audran * 1971: Bodil Award for Best Non-American Film for Claude Chabrol<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bodilprisen.dk/aar-for-aar/1971-2/ |title=Bodilprisen 1971 |website=Bodilprisen |access-date=9 May 2023 |language=Danish}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{IMDb title|0064106}} * {{Rotten Tomatoes|le_boucher}}
{{Claude Chabrol}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Boucher}} Category:1970 films Category:1970s psychological thriller films Category:1970 French-language films Category:French psychological thriller films Category:Italian psychological thriller films Category:French serial killer films Category:Films directed by Claude Chabrol Category:Films set in France Category:1970s serial killer films Category:Italian serial killer films Category:1970 Italian films Category:1970 French films Category:Films scored by Pierre Jansen Category:French-language Italian films Category:French-language thriller films