Symphonie pour un massacre

Oh my God, what a great French Noir, what atmosphere, almost perfect movie, just anchored on well developed screenplay, the casting hadn't a superlative stars properly speaking as Jean Rochefort, Claude Dauphin, Charles Vanel among others secondary players, just still unknown the young and gorgeous Michèle Mercier on small role, a five piece Paris's gang has to buy drugs from Marseille's dealer, but at once 500.000 dollars, one of them steal the money from the delivery man on a train, seems a perfect crime, one by one was killed along the way, the crime usually leave some tracks, traces, footprints, the distrust prevails among thieves, suspicions, betrayal, the director Jacques Deray didn't adds any sub plot, focusing in a breathtaking non-stopping acting, a minor flaw wasn't easy noticed, otherwise will be perfect, pay attention carefully when you watch on early scenes, the mistake was there, further, proving that to do a great movie not quite to have greatest stars, they are necessary, but with a unusual story blended with smart screenplay under the baton of the wise director, then on way straight to the success!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 9.5

There is no massacre although at the beginning there is rather a lot of talking about the five gangsters but as soon as they get going it is really entertaining and by the end there are rather a lot of deaths. There is nothing too nasty but just a bit short of it being comic so it is thrilling throughout and looks great. The black & white cinematography is crisp and wonderful much of it on location and especially when at night in Paris and Brussels and the neon and amazingly brilliant in the bars and restaurants. Claude Renoir was the man and also with Barbarella (1968) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and he had worked on, The Grande Illusion (1937) for his uncle, Jean Renoir. With this film although we think we know what is going to happen but not as there are several surprising moments all the time, as with in the train, by the car and of course when buying a newspaper. Splendid and dazzling.

Symphony for a massacre, as the French wording has it, never particularly rises above the contract of its title. Neither does it, via the medium of the crime thriller deliver any poignant commentary on life, as you might get from Melville in Le deuxième souffle (referring to a second wind you may get in later life), or via the medium of a "buddies movie" deliver any poignant commentary on male solidarity, as you might get from Duvivier in La Belle Equipe. It is a film where people are simply killed sequentially, but without the panache that grand guignol would rely upon to float the same property. It suffers perhaps from being quite late in the day, in 1963, for creating such a work of noir, too far from the pessimistic thoughts and hardships arising from the Second World War.

Of course there are master actors and actresses involved in the movie and three master directors, so it is not reasonable for me to suggest it is a turkey, but I have seen better films of its type, at least to my taste. There are occasional flourishes in the dialogue, Charles Vanel's Paoli darkly offering some "paté de merles" or "paté of blackbirds" to his co-conspirator, but it does feel like a Michel Audiard could have been bought in to tighten things up.

The film attempts to make an impact through the use of symphonic music in fairly uneventful scenes, and this element did not work for me. Much better the minimalism of Le Samouraï.

At last, we can see the third Jacques Deray movie, another interesting french film noir : fine script by José Giovanni, Claude Sautet (in his noir period) and Deray, strong dark cinematography by Claude Renoir in Paris and other towns and great casting (Rochefort, Vanel, Auclair, Dauphin, Mercier, Rocca, ...).

But there are two points that bother me. First, Rochefort doesn't look enough nasty to me. Second, the movie lacks in nervosity, some shots are real slow. But it's personnal opinion, otherwise it's a fine entertainment and it's great to discover an invisible french film noir in glorious black and white from the beginning of the 60's.