Le voleur

In Paris circa 1900, rakish Georges Randal (Jean Paul Belmondo) is brought up by his rich and egoistic uncle , who robs his inheritance . Georges hopes to marry his cousin Charlotte (Geneviève Bujold) , but his uncle manages himself for her to marry a wealthy neighbour. As an act of vengeance, Georges steals the family jewels. Subsequently , he becomes an expert thief , enjoying the experience so much that he join forces with another swindler , a cunning priest : abbé Félix La Margelle (Julien Guiomar) . He unites other fellow thieves and all of them robbing the bourgeois people and making off with their women . While he meets and falls in love for a great number of beautiful girls : Geneviève Bujold ,Marie Dubois , Françoise Fabian , Marlène Jobert , Bernadette Lafont . The light touch of the masters! Malle makes ... Belmondo takes.

This was a decent and brilliant Louis Malle film, but neither extraordinary , nor notable , but an acceptable and passable picture . Set in the turn of the century , being a very well designed period piece which is filled with subtle characterizations , intrigue , drama , action , and brief bits of humor and irony . These elements are efficiently and compellingly blended by Luis Malle , a director during the¨Nouvelle Vague, New Wave" of 1950s and 1960s , though technically not considered a Nouvelle Vague auteur . Including a splendid protagonist , Belmondo , who along the way gets flirty with a great deal of wonderful and popular French actresses . Cast is frankly well as Jean Paul Belmondo who gives a sympathetic and enjoyable acting , as usual , as a spoiled young who embarks upon a life-time of burglary . Belmondo was at the peak of his international fame , by the time he played his best titles as Pierrot le Fou , Weekend at Dunkirk , Tender Scoundrel , Chinese Adventures in China , Oh ¡ , Backfire, Mississippi Mermaid , among others . Support cast is pretty good , such as : Marie Dubois , Françoise Fabian , Bernadette Lafont , Marlene Jobert and brief appeaarances and cameos from Charles Denner , Anne Vernon , Jean-Luc Bideau and Louis Malle himself as a figurant .

The film displays an engrossing and adequate cinematography by prestigious camera operator Henry Decae . As well as an evocative and atmospheric musical score .The motion picture was professionally directed by Louis Malle , but in fits and starts . Malle is considered to be one of the best French filmmakers . His résumé showed that he had worked as an assistant to filmmaker Robert Bresson when Malle was hired by underwater explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau to be a photographer on the Calypso. Cousteau soon promoted him to be co-director of "The Silent World"(1956) . Years later, Cousteau called Malle the best underwater cameraman he ever had . His first film was the intriguing story ¨Lift to the Scaffold¨(58) . Malle's second film, ¨Les amants ¨or "The Lovers"(1958) , starring Jeanne Moreau broke taboos against on screen eroticism. In 1968 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the obscenity conviction of an Ohio theater that had exhibited "Les Amants." He also made films on the other side of the Atlantic, starting with Pretty Baby (1978), the film that made Brooke Shields an international superstar. The actress who played a supporting role in that film was given a starring role in Malle's next American film, Atlantic City (1980) , that promising actress was Susan Sarandon. In one of his later French films, Au revoir les enfants (1987), Malle was able to find catharsis for an experience that had haunted him since the German occupation of France in World War II. At age 12, he was sent to a Catholic boarding school near Paris that was a refuge for several Jewish students, one of them was Malle's rival for academic honors and his friend . After that , he made ¨Milou en mai¨and ¨Damage¨ with two international actors Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche .In his final film, Vania in 42 Street (1994), Malle again penetrated the veil between life and art as theater people rehearse Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." In that film, Malle worked again with theater director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn . Malle was married to Candice Bergen, and he succumbed to lymphoma in 1995. Rating : 6/10 . Well worth seeing .

Recovered and digitized versions of old movies are often a joy for movies fans. We have the opportunity to see films made 40, 50, 60 years ago in conditions similar to those at the premiere and sometimes even in better conditions. The curtain of fog and the degradation of the media are eliminated, which allows us to see the faces of the actors, to hear their voices and the soundtrack clearly, to enjoy costumes and decorations in colors and with refreshed contours. We can enjoy the qualities of the films, but the flaws can also be seen more clearly and the problems highlighted. This is also the case of the film 'Le Voleur' (the English version was titled 'The Thief of Paris') by Louis Malle, made during the period of maximum success and popularity of the director. The recovered version released a few years ago reveals to us as an elegant but old-fashioned film, with a content in which light entertainment is combined with a fringe ideology which I believe was already old-fashioned in 1967 when the film was released, and which seems even less plausible today.

If we look at this film as pure entertainment, we can include it in the category of French films that tried in the 60s and 70s to revive the tradition of police literature sprinkled with justice heroes (like Fantomas) or charming thieves. The latter category also includes Georges Randal, the hero of the film played by Jean-Paul Belmondo - a burglar with a gentleman's costume and manners, who accidentally became a villain, remaining in the profession by vocation. The story of the film is based on a novel by Georges Darien, an anarchist writer and activist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who shrouded his book in enough mystery to suggest that it was an autobiography (which it is not sure it was true).

As an entertainment film, 'Le Voleur' works acceptably. Jean-Paul Belmondo, who was then at his peak, acts with self-assurance and pleasure, anticipating his memorable role in 'Borsalino' three years later. Belmondo is surrounded by charming feminine presences, giving us the opportunity to remember some of the beautiful and talented stars of French cinema of that time. Geneviève Bujold did not impress me too much, instead Marie Dubois and Marlène Jobert are delicious. One performance I cannot skip mentioning is that of Julien Guiomar, as Abbot Felix, a Catholic prelate who knows as much about burglaries and stolen objects as he does about the Bible. The atmosphere of the time and especially the interiors of the bourgeois houses in Paris, Brussels and London are excellently revived. The less successful part of the film seemed to me to be the one in which to the personal motivations of the hero are added social elements, trying to make of the thieves' profession kind of a likeable righteous guild. No matter how repugnant are the bourgeois portrayed in the film, this attempt is not convincing, and not for moralistic reasons, but because even the actors, including Belmondo, fail to portray the characters' dilemmas. However, 'Le Voleur' is a more than acceptable entertainment, and not just for reasons of nostalgia.

If I had watcehd this film without seeing the director's name on the opening credits, I would have bet my last shirt on Claude Chabrol, because of the subject, atmosphere - bourgeoisie, upper middle class critism - and actors directing. Yes, Claude Chabrol could have done this; after all, he did LANDRU, which takes place in the same period as this one, costume drama. Very brilliant movie, where Jean Paul Belmondo is absolutely great, complex, ambivalent.

... and those gorgeous eyes to look at. The film would be a lot better if it were 30 minutes shorter, and if Malle didn't lovingly photograph those rich interiors, that gorgeous furniture that Belmondo treats so brutally with his burglar tools. Jacques Saulnier did the production design, and this is a really handsome film to watch. It is a precursor to Stavisky..., the Resnais film that Belmondo starred in some years later, another Saulnier production. The solitary nature of the crimes Randal commits does not allow the idea of a confederation of criminals against the bourgeoisie to develop--this is one of the themes of the script that fails to work.

The acting is always good. Guiomar as the crooked priest is always effective; you may remember him longer than you do Belmondo. Paul Le Person as a thief has some good scenes, as does Jacques Debary as the politician Randal robs while he's making a speech. The best scene for me was the Guiomar-Marie Dubois encounter, when she recounts a bogus story to the feigned surprise of the priest.

Louis Malle was one of the greatest French directors, along with Resnais and Chabrol, yet he didn't always make the films that his talent should have let him do. Le Voleur is just too ripe, too pretty, too focused on surfaces to work for me.

Just saw this forgotten gem by Louis Malle today on Starz. I absolutely loved it. I admit I have a huge bias towards movies about thieves: the artistry of their trade fascinates me (and explains why I can't get enough of playing "Thief" the computer game series).

Nevertheless, this was an engrossing turn of the century period piece which is filled with brilliant, subtle characterizations of extremely interesting and complex characters. It's exciting without needing to be fast paced and it doesn't sacrifice depth of emotion (which is repressed but fully present under the surface as these characters must constantly re-evaluate their involvement in their chosen lifestyles).

The film is beautifully structured so that by the end of it we, who have been voyeuristically caught up in the romance of suave criminals, must, like them, take stock of what has been lost.