Frantic

Roman Polanski’s FRANTIC is an engaging thriller in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock. Harrison Ford plays Richard Walker, an American heart surgeon vacationing with his wife, Sondra (Betty Buckley), in Paris, where he is to attend a medical convention. Sondra suddenly and unexpectedly disappears from the couple’s hotel room while Richard is taking a shower, and when she doesn’t return after several hours, he decides to report the incident. But neither the French police nor the U.S. embassy offers much help or even appears particularly interested in his dilemma. On the brink of despair, Walker decides to embark on an investigation himself, aided by Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner), a carefree, seductive gamine who is also mixed up in the case, as he discovers after tracing back to her a mysterious piece of switched luggage that he suspects his wife’s kidnappers are after. When the mismatched duo finally succeed in tracking down the perpetrators, it becomes apparent that the stakes in this extortion scheme are far higher than they imagined. Ford, cast somewhat against type, gives a credible, low-key performance as the anxious Walker. Polanski also cowrote this suspenseful film, assigning the female lead to his young wife (Seigner).