La loi des hommes

This French crime film is only worth for the sixties, early sixties, atmosphere. That's all. The plot is complicated, flat, uninteresting, boring.... The opening scene robbery is laughable - the heist of the century, as the news say.... Rubbish. The plot is an outrage for the audiences, one of the worst French crime films of this period. The only interest for me is to see Philippe Leroy Beaulieu as the lead and Michel Constantin in a small role. They both were together in LE TROU, three years earlier. Forget it. Poor Micheline Presle, so far here from BOULE DE SUIF. She deserved better than this crap.

This is a strange film noir .After the attack of the armored van,nothing is really what a fan of the genre expects.It's a cat and mouse play between a cop (Philippe Leroy) and a bourgeoise (Micheline Presle) who may (or may not) be involved in the robbery .We will never know whether he harasses her because it's his duty or because he's deeply in love with her.Then begins a curious chase,where the woman always escapes with the help of weirdoes: a princess (played by a cast against type Arletty:one of her last parts,her last year in the movies ;Arletty's inimitable accent is almost absent here),a German blacksmith who was a hero (or maybe was not at all)during WW2,then a priest whom the heroine confesses to.That may be the meaning of the title (the law of man ) cause God,the priest says,has got nothing to do with man's law.