The great French actor Jean Rochefort was best known for comedy roles when he was cast as a duplicitous criminal in this 1963 gangster thriller with a film noir soul. Christian is the most mercenary member of a gang that plans to expand its operations from nightclubs and gambling rooms to smuggling and selling narcotics.
After the members kick in their share for the purchase, Christian comes up with a plot to rob their courier (played by former criminal turned crime novelist José Giovanni) on the train to Italy.
This plot involves an identical valise, knowledge of the secret departure, and careful timing to give him an alibi as he doubles back from a business trip in Brussels. When he ends up murdering his partner in the course of the crime, the plot starts to unravel. The gang goes in search of the traitor and Christian has to keep murdering his partners as they uncover the truth.
Director Jacques Deray delivers a thriller with classic film noir elements and style informed by the French New Wave, with handheld camerawork and extensive location shooting on the streets of Paris and Lyon. He creates an increasingly tense atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust and draws excellent performances from his cast, which includes Claude Dauphin as the gang's elder statesman, Michel Auclair as the struggling manager of the gambling operation, and Michèle Mercier as his devoted wife and partner. And he deftly handles the intricate plotting of the clever script he adapted with Giovanni and Claude Sautet (a talented filmmaker in his own right).
It's a superb French noir, one previously unavailable in the U.S., and a compelling and entertaining thriller. Deray went on to become one of France's most successful crime movie filmmakers, directing Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo in Borsalino and Delon and Jean-Louis Trintignant in Flic Story (1975), among many others, and Rochefort went on to become one of the most respected character actors in France and win two Cesar Awards for his performances.
The film was restored in 2016 in France from the best surviving materials. That restoration, in 2K from a 4K master, is the source for the American home video debut. It's presented with a 26-minute featurette on the film featuring film historian François Guérif and Jean Rochefort biographer Jean-Philippe Guerand.
What kind of film series would this narrative fit in?
This would be an excellent pick in a series of French noir and crime thrillers, alongside the celebrated works of Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker, and Henri-Georges Clouzot.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
Fans of film noir would love this distinctly French example of the genre, which has been unavailable to see (let alone own) in the U.S. for decades.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
It would be a fine addition to any collection of classic French movies and a great choice to add to the increasingly popular genre of French crime cinema, which has been well served by restorations, theatrical rereleases, and special edition discs from the Criterion Collection in the last couple of decades.