Dai sbirro

"His face was his fortune" is one description of Lino Ventura, the former wrestler turned actor. In movies like The Sicilian Clan and Adieu Poulet, he played a tough cop as well as any actor on either side of the Atlantic. In Adieu Poulet, as Verjeat the cop on a mission, Ventura's character has almost everyone lined up against him: a cop killer, a political big shot in Rouen who has connections to the national government in Paris and, of course, Verjeat's superiors who consider him a loose cannon. Adieu Poulet already shows the decline in the French film industry from only a few years earlier, when French films were regularly shown in art house theaters in the United States. The production values of this movie are almost non-existent, the budget of this film must have been a tenth of The Sicilian Clan made six years earlier and financed by 20th Century Fox's French movie distribution company. That movie opened in the USA at the Sutton on 57th Street in NYC in 1970 and got a fairly wide release. Adieu Poulet was released in the USA in 1979, playing at the 68th Street Playhouse, where New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby gave the movie a bad review. Then oblivion for Adieu Poulet.

I was able to see the movie with subtitles only because eight years ago CUNY-TV used to show French movies on its cable channel, subtitles courtesy of Julia McPhail. Adieu Poulet's tale involves crooked politicians, the goons they hire to stamp out their opposition and even the operator of a whorehouse who says she has connections, so Verjeat had better lay off her, after an old customer drops dead in a bed with a built in vibrator. You know, the subject of whores, politicians distancing themselves from the deaths of civil servants and cover-ups of corruption are as timely now in New York City as over 30 years ago in Rouen.

Just look at the cover-up of the deaths of the two firefighters at the Deutsche Bank building fire in downtown Manhattan, where Fire Commissioner Scoppetta (who never spent a minute working as a firefighter) is protecting himself and his boss, Mayor Bloomberg, by demoting FDNY brass, convenient scapegoats for a fire at a building demolition project apparently being handled by a firm with organized crime ties. At least in Adieu Poulet, the crooked politicians know that the solution to the Verjeat problem is a promotion, not a demotion. In NYC, whether it is reports by firefighters of massive explosions at the WTC buildings on 9/11 or the giant arson fire at the abandoned Brooklyn rope factory warehouse (whose owner already had cleared out another building he owned with an arson fire) or the $75 million demolition fee paid to demolish the Deutsche Bank building, silence is golden.

But the tough cops played by Lino Ventura are fictional characters. In the real world, in New York City, arson investigators spend their time not investigating crime but chauffeuring Fire Commissioner Scoppetta to meetings. At least Lardatte, the scheming politician in Adieu Poulet, is not a double dipper like Scoppetta, who collects a big NYC government pension on top of his even bigger FDNY Commissioner salary and is only good at lying and covering up arson fires by connected real estate developers. Only in New York, not Rouen.

I saw this French cop/buddy film when it originally ran in New York City for a limited time. I still remember the basics. Lino Ventura was sensational as usual, his sardonic, mistrusting self, and Dewaere was great as his partner. They made an enjoyable team, something I can't say for most cop/buddy films. Dewaere took his own life just a few years later, a very sad finale for an excellent actor. I'd love to see this film again but it has never surfaced on tape or disc and never airs on TV. But no worries, with satellite, I have an endless pile of worthless crap movies to surf through while good films like this languish in a vault, forgotten.

....were very trendy in France during the seventies ,in the wake of the events of May 68."Adieu Poulet" is a watchable ,if not particularly memorable effort in the field.

Lino Ventura and Patrick Dewaere -whose career had just begun and sadly would be short-lived- make a solid team .They have to fight against a far-right politician (of the P.R.U party (whose motto is "Moral and Order" ) played by Victor Lanoux.

The script was written by Francis Veber ("la Chèvre" "le Dîner de Cons" )and it was filmed on location in Rouen.Pierre Granier-Deferre made good "Cinema de Qualité".

Typical of what French novelist Raf Vallet wrote, see for instance MORT D'UN POURRI, the George Lautner's film also adpted from a Raf Vallet - Jean Laborde - 's book. Another very searing picture, "attack" against politicians in general, all stories involving rotten politicians ready to anything to achieve their goals. Even the nastier things. Here, you may expect the duo Lino Ventura and Patrick Dewaere, and yoou have it, but maybe not the way you hoped it to be. Patrick Dewaere was still "uploading" in his career, he was not yet the star he will become several years later, his role here would have been the same with any actor instead of him. He lacks his "true" personality, here. But his character is good, the face to face between two generations. But I repeat, any actor would have done the same. The same cast: Ventura and Dewaere in the early eighties, would have been terrific, because in this period, the latest had grown up in the meanwhile. Claude Brosset is terrific here as the villain, he partly steals the show. He co stars here Henri Lambert, another famous French villain whom I have always confounded with Brosset. Same kind of faces and supporting characters. Good entertaining political crime flick. Very strange and unexpected ending....

This neo French Noir explores an usual matters where a crime clash against the powerful politician establishment, Lino Venture defying this corrupt system helped by a crazy partner at Paris, as they say "Starts a dream" this forgotten gem from the mid-seventies has a strong persona of the incorruptible cop the Commissioner Verjeat, when expose a politician at public space by vengeance over a death of a policemen from his department, aftermaths he is "promoted" by another precinct, actually it came front above, trying throw off the menace, aside Ventura a true French institution on a his apogee, has another highlight on movie his partner the odd Inspector Lefrevre (Patrick Dewaere) a sort of opposite of Verjeat, fabulous unknown Noir picture from Pierre Granier-Deferre, underrated!!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 2'/ Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5