Le Deuxième souffle (1966)

Le Deuxième souffle is a French thriller film first released in 1966, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.  The film is based on a novel by José Giovanni and stars Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Raymond Pellegrin, Christine Fabréga and Marcel Bozzuffi.  It has also been released under the title: Second Breath.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


A once notorious gangster named Gu escapes from prison and returns to Paris to rejoin his former mistress, Manouche.  Having killed the two men who are blackmailing Manouche, Gu goes into hiding, before embarking on a hold-up to raise some desperately needed money.  He is pursued by the equally ruthless Commissaire Blot...



The familiar Jean-Pierre Melville themes of honour, loyalty and redemption underpin this hard-edged policier which sees the formidable pairing of Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse, two redoutable heavyweights of French cinema of the 1950s and ’60s, the Golden Age of the French film noir.

Although it is similar to many of Melville’s other films (most noticeably Le Samouraï, which the director made a year after this film), Le Deuxième souffle stands apart on account of its trenchant realism and uncompromising depiction of gangland violence. It is a gripping and disturbing crime drama in which the morality of the criminal and his police opponent are subtly reversed.

Strong performances and assured direction makes this one of Jean-Pierre Melville’s best films, a rare masterpiece of the gangster thriller genre. In distinct contrast to Melville’s later films (from Le Samouraï onwards), in which a stylised existentialist approach prevails, Le Deuxième souffle is well and truly anchored in the real world of the gangster mentality, soaked in greed, deceit, vengeance and blood.  Convincingly acting and well scripted, the film is photographed in the gritty realist style favoured by Melville at the time.  Never before has the shady underworld of the French policier been so real, so brutal and so chilling.  This is one of the handful of European gangster films which can be said to match the quality and impact of their film noir American equivalents. 

© James Travers 2001

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