Colpo grosso al Casinò

Charles (a magnificent Jean Gavin) is a mature delinquent recently released from prison . He renounces the plans his wife (Viviane Romance) about a simple and easy life . Charles pretends the perfect robbery recruiting previous cell-mate named Francis (Alain Delon, actor most often used in Verneuil films) . The hold-up is carefully schemed on the vault of Cannes casino in the French Riviera . Meanwhile Francis falls in love with a gorgeous baller dancer (Rita Cadillac). Francis wielding a machine gun and black masked hides himself on the elevator shaft and heads to basement where is the locker room . But the bad luck does the crime gone awry.

This heist movie packs thrills , emotion , romance, extraordinary performances and exciting finale burglary . Sensational acting by two big star names , Gabin and Delon . Strong secondary cast with Viviane Romance as the spouse , Jean Carmet as a barman and the Spanish Jose Luis De Villalonga as a Casino chief . Interesting and thrilling screenplay by the prestigious Michael Audiard based on novel by Zekial Marko . Atmospheric cinematography in black and white by Louis Page . Lively musical score with catching leitmotif composed and conducted by Michael Magne .

The picture is splendidly directed by Henry Verneuil , a Turkish director working in France from the 40s . Although not a director of great reputation among the critics , his movies have almost all been aimed squarely at the commercial market . Verneuil is an expert on heist-genre such as he proved in ¨The Sicilians clan(68)¨ also with Gabin and Delon , ¨The burglars(1971)¨ with Omar Shariff and Jean Paul Belmondo , furthermore on Warlike genre : ¨Weekend at Dunkirk¨ and ¨The 25th hour¨ and even directed one Western : Guns of San Sebastian(68)¨. He seemed to have dropped out of the film-making after 1976 , but in 1981 unexpectedly reappeared with yet another of his caper film : ¨Thousand millions of dollars¨ . Rating : Exceptional and above average, a must see for French cinema lovers and Gavin and Delon fans.

This film deserves more credit than it gets. All the actors are top notch (Jean Gabin as the ageing theif, Alain Delon as the playboy) and the story is very well crafted and has all the great tough guy dialogue of great caper's like RIFIFI, BOB LE FLAMBEUR etc however the overall tone of the film is a bit lighter and not as serious as those films. the heist itself is pretty short and sweet but this movie is more about the planning and the aftermath.

Another great thing about this picture is that even though it's black and white, it's still widescreen adding a nice touch to the look of the film. The only drawback to the DVD is that the picture is quite soft and blurry but for a film of this age and obscurity beggars can't be choosers! Another must see for heist fans (like me!)

After a long period in jail, Charles (Jean Gabin) returns home and does not accept the plan of his wife Ginette (Viviane Romance) of moving to the countryside for a quieter life. He plots the heist of a casino and invites his young cell mate Francis (Alain Delon) and his brother-in-law to participate. The check-in two different hotels posing of millionaire and Charles' plan works perfectly. But when Charles finds that Francis has compromised his plan with a silly attitude, things go wrong.

"Mélodie en sous-sol" is another great French heist movie with Jean Gabin and Alain Delon. The story is well-developed and the ironic conclusion is very tense. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Os Gangsters da Casaca" ("The Gentlemen Gangsters")

A prototypical heist flick. Old ex-con Jean Gambin is looking for one last score before he retires -- the robbery of a casino on the French Riveria. He enlists Delon, a cocky punk, to help him. Has all of the features: old guy looking for one last score, young active guy who still sort of needs to learn the ropes, complicated heist relying on split second timing, things that go wrong at the last second, unexpected developments, a lot of masquerades, etc. Early on there's some playing around with the notion that Gambin symbolizes a time that is passing, but that isn't really developed, settling down instead to more standard genre fare. Heist is clever and well done, the remake of Ocean's Eleven later stole some of the ideas here. Final shot has that typical Gallic "throw your hands up in despair" kind of thing going for it. Cast is good, with Delon in particular a standout in the kind of role he was meant to play in those years.

I don't know why this movie is so little-celebrated -- it's terrific. It's so assured. It brings in the worn and smooth Jean Gabin for his last job (of course), and through some exchanges of witty banter gives us some time to get to know him and his wife before introducing his former cellmate, Alain Delon, as the leather-jacketed toughie. They're both excellent here, especially Gabin, who's polite but still certainly in control. He gives a wryness, like a fat Orson Welles, to his performance. The hot-tempered Delon gives a jolt of vitality to the picture. The entire movie is nice and slow, perfectly glamorous, the best of swinging, jazzy '60s cool. In a conventional movie, when Delon is told to seduce a ballerina so he and Gabin can gain a backstage pass to the theater, the courting would have ended with him buying her a drink. But in this film, it lasts for a good half an hour. And it's never boring. Those nice, long sequences explain everything fully. Not the plot, per se, but elements of the plot -- Delon's seducing of the dancer (which he mucks up more than once); Delon's brother-in-law, who in a normal movie would have been nothing but a side character, here is fully-fleshed out; Gabin's wife. And that long, languorous rhythm is what makes the major, lengthy set piece so memorable -- it's where Delon slinks around, slipping up occasionally, climbing up stairs, crawling through a ventilation shaft, and hiding in an elevator (very "Mission: Impossible"), eventually leading to the robbery. And it has one of the best endings to any caper movie that I've seen. 9/10