Film Review
Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura are reunited for the fourth time in as many years in this
pretty conventional 1950s French crime-thriller. The film was based on a
novel by the popular série
noir writer Auguste Le Breton, whose works were frequently adapated for French cinema.
The characters, the scenario and the dialogue are all familiar stuff, film noir by numbers,
but it was a very popular formula at the time. Gabin impresses once again
as the tough hoodlum with an all-too-convincing veneer of respectability.
© James Travers 2004
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.
Next Gilles Grangier film:
Reproduction interdite (1957)
Film Synopsis
Seemingly a law-abiding garage owner, Louis Bertain is in fact the leader
of a ruthless gang of crooks that includes Frédo, Pépito and
Raymond. The gang's nefarious activities are untroubled until the fateful
day when Louis's younger brother Pierre is released from prison and returns
to the city to look up his old mistress Hélène. Superintendent
Pluvier's attempts to coerce Pierre into informing on his brother's criminal
activities come to nothing, but he bides his time, knowing that sooner or
later Louis will make a fatal error. Louis offers Pierre work in his
garage, providing he agrees never to see Hélène again.
It is a promise that the younger man is quick to offer but has no intention
of keeping.
One evening, Pierre overhears his brother organising his next hold-up with
Pépito. The robbery, of an armoured van carrying 15 million
francs, proceeds as planned but it suddenly goes spectacularly wrong.
In the ensuing confusion, Raymond is killed and Pépito is forced to
shoot dead the couriers and two motorcycle cops who give chase afterwards.
When the police come to arrest Louis, Pépito convinces himself that
they have been betrayed by Pierre. Seething with anger, he sets off
in pursuit of the younger brother to inflict on him a just punishment.
Little does he know that the real culprit has already handed himself over
to the police...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by frenchfilms.org and must not be copied.