I saw this movie at the university long, long ago. I had no idea who Melville was. I hadn't given any thought to the existence of French gangsters and I knew nothing about French gangster movies. The movie seemed extremely old to me, but it had been made less than fifteen years earlier.
Are gangsters really that interesting? I think of John Gotti, a moron who sat in prison making plans to bribe the President of the United States to grant him a pardon. There was video of him browbeating his son who came to visit for saying he wanted to be a baseball player when he grew up. Gotti ordered him to want to be a lawyer.
There was a reality show a few years later that made it clear that no one in that family was capable of anything resembling intellectual activity.
This movie starts with some aging French gangsters escaping from prison and jumping on a moving train.
Turns into an honor among thieves story as these things do.
I was drawn to the movie by the photocopied flier. It had a picture of a French geezer in a trench coat with a .45 one hand and a Luger in the other. It was from a scene near the end of the movie.
Two things stood out to me. One was that Dodge Darts were considered chic in Europe. The other was a scene that was pretty good. Don't read this if you don't want me to ruin it for you.
A French criminal rents a room. He places a gun out of sight on a high shelf. Then he stands next to it and practices reaching up behind him, grabbing the gun and holding it on whoever might show up.
Then he goes out. Probably to buy cheese.
While he's gone, some rival criminals enter his room. They quickly search it and find his hidden gun which they take. Then they sit down and wait.
The guy comes back. Finds these guys sitting there. As he speaks to them, he causally saunters over to the shelf where he hid his gun. They have a tense conversation. There is greater and greater suspense as we wait for him to reach for his gun that isn't there.
Available on the Criterion Channel.
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