Of 2021's specialty releases, a restored version of Jacques Deray's 1969 erotic thriller La Piscine with Alain Delon proved the biggest winner, playing for 14 weeks at New York's Film Forum. Luca Guadagnino's 2015 English-language remake, A Bigger Splash, had previously helped to bring attention to both film and filmmaker. All told, Deray and Delon would make nine features together, including these two mid-career actioners, both of which received the restoration treatment in 2013.
In 1977's Le Gang, an adaptation of ex-detective Roger Borniche's 1975 novel, Delon plays Robert, a high-strung member of a robbery ring in post-World War II Paris. While out on the town with his boisterous crew, he meets winsome hat check girl Marinette (Borsalino's Nicole Calfan), who narrates the tale, and a romance ensues.
With money rolling in from their heists, Marinette quits her job. But when the police start closing in on the gang, they hide out with Robert's family friends in the country. Even after the police track them down, he still finds a way to throw them off the scent. Deray maintains such a jaunty tone, thanks largely to Carlo Rustichelli's Scott Joplinesque score, that it almost comes as a surprise when things turn bleak, but happy endings weren't exactly Deray's stock in trade.
Three Men to Kill, his 1980 adaptation of Jean-Patrick Manchette's 1976 novel Le Petit Bleu de la Côte Ouest, is tauter. It starts with the discovery by Delon's Michel, a professional poker player, of a dying man at a crash site. He loads him into his car and speeds off to the hospital, where the man expires. Two of his arms-dealing associates also turn up dead.
With no ties to any of them, Michel attempts to get on with his life, particularly his relationship with Béa (Flesh for Frankenstein's Dalila Di Lazzaro), except two thugs start following him around. He attempts to shake them off by whisking Béa to Trouville, where his mother runs a hotel.
Emmerich (Pierre Dux, delightful) believes the dying man shared top-secret intel with Michel about his missile-development project, so Michel reaches out to a friend in intelligence, except things go from bad to worse when Emmerich's thugs ramp up their campaign of terror, leading to high-speed car chases, fiery gas station explosions, and dead bodies galore.
Once Michel turns murderer, he has nowhere left to turn until a job offer from an unlikely source promises to change his fortunes once and for all. Of the two films, the latter proves the most effective. If it hits familiar beats, Deray never lets up on the accelerator. He also lets Delon be Delon, unlike the ever-grinning, strangely-bewigged character he plays in Le Gang, whose groovy threads look out of place in a film set in 1945.
If neither effort hits the same heights as La Piscine, they still give the middle-aged matinee idol ample opportunity to spar with the men and romance the ladies. Recommended for classic film collections with a specialization in French cinema. Film studies professors should take advantage of this box set when teaching Jacques Deray.
Discover more titles for your film collection in our list of drama movies.