Deux hommes dans la ville

Directed and written by Corsican José Giovanni, produced by Alain Delon, who stars in the film in partnership with veteran Jean Gabin, this is certainly a different film from the French-Italian cop movies of the 60s and 70s, many of them with the same protagonists.

Here we have a regenerated ex-convict struggling to integrate into society and a police and judicial system that cannot forgive and reintegrate those who have already paid for their mistakes and truly want to turn a page in their lives.

A film that exposes the weaknesses of the French penal and judicial system while condemning the maintenance of the death penalty in modern France in 1973.

Curiously enough, the central plot of this one is quite similar to that of ONCE A THIEF (1965; also starring Alain Delon and which I watched on the very same day) – though here it's even gloomier (ultimately taking the form of a plea against capital punishment)! Incidentally, co-writer/director Giovanni had been a convict in real-life, and even wrote the novel which inspired Jacques Becker's marvelous prison-escape drama LE TROU (1960).

Anyway, Delon and Jean Gabin are well-teamed here (this was the last of three films in which they appeared together, following ANY NUMBER CAN WIN [1963] and THE SICILIAN CLAN [1969]): the latter isn't particularly exerted by his role – being, after all, among his last – but the former is unusually committed and, in fact, he also served as the film's producer! Mimsy Farmer appears as Delon's new lover following the tragic death of his wife in a road accident; Michel Bouquet is memorable as the Javert-like police inspector who won't let Delon go (a slinky but nastier version of the Van Heflin part in ONCE A THIEF); Gerard Depardieu has a brief role at the beginning as a wannabe criminal associate of Delon's.

Based in own life experience on dead row of the director José Giovanni takes to screen for Alain Delon as co-producer, the role of friendly Germaine Cazeneuve will be to Lino Ventura who turned down, then asking for Yves Montand who indirectly said no, they had re-written the screenplay to fit an old men like Jean Gabin who play Germaine a social worker that tries socialize some prisoners using his own sharpened instinct gathered for a long time, he struggles for a parole to Gino Strabliggi (Alain Delon) two years before the judgment given of twelve years, after on street already working he lost your girlfriend on car's accident, moved to Montpelier he starts again always escorted by Germaine, when faces Inspector Goitreau (Michel Bouquet) a man who arrested him for first time, for now on the rigid Inspector will turn his life in a hell, letting Gino to nervous breakdown and killing him with own hands, in jail later after an exhaustive trial was sentenced for a death penalty at Guillotine, state by many as Les Miserable alike but it wasn't to me at all, it was Giavanni statement against death penalty on France, which will be swept on 1981, strangely Alain Delon making this picture was totally agreed with death penalty!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8

I never cried watching Alain Delon's film before, but this one is an exception.

However, despite the differences between Alain Delon and Jean Gabin, their acting styles share melancholy and barely repressed violence. In Two Men in Town (1973), the final of their collaborations together, the stars share enough iconic chemistry for their scenes to reflect the intergenerational passing of a torch.

This is such a touching film. It's so sad when I see the ratings and review while this film should be more have recognition.

Good job, Alain! Also my crush.

It represents the ash after its final credits. last meet between Gabin and Delon on screen, it is a film inspiring, for an old man like me, nostalgia. because it seems a puzzle with familiar pieces. simple. but seductive. dramatic. for the nuances. a story about second chance, justice and sins. one of films for a precise target. because it is one of keys to an universe of cinema who seems, for many reasons, lost today.