I give this film a nine, for two reasons: 1. Sharp movie script, well delivered by the protagonists; and 2. Lino in his grave won't like this, but Francoise Fabian steals this movie from him with a truly compelling performance - as a socially and professionally sophisticated and sumptuously attractive woman who is a foil for all men, save Lino Ventura, who conveys at least as much personal chemistry in this film as a block of cement. I mean, when they are reunited following his six-year stint behind bars - he has nothing to say to her, when she is all choked-up with emotion! Ventura gives the expression "man of few words" a renaissance interpretation.
Ventura, frankly, was much better cast as the detective out to corral the jewel thieves, in "The Sicilian Clan," than he is here, as the reticent-personality jewel thief, and developing "love interest" of Francoise Fabian. She is so beguiling in this film, looking an ageless 30 instead of her 40 years of age at the time, one wonders if Lelouche might have considered her opposite Trintignant in "A Man And A Woman," some six years earlier? She deserved as least as much international recognition as many of her contemporaries of this time who outshined her, beginning with Claudia Cardinale, Elke Sommer, and Elsa Martinelli, none of whom could have carried this film to stellar heights, as did FF.
