La notte degli sciacalli

Guy Lefranc's career got off to most auspicious start , although his first two works ("knock" " un histoire d'amour" )owed a lot to Louis Jouvet;some entertaining comedies ("suivez-moi jeune homme" "capitaine pantoufle" ) some less so ("elle et lui ") follow.

"Chantage "(1955) which depicted a blackmail organisation seemed to indicate that the director was going in a good direction.

It did not seem that way with the following thriller, which got bogged down in the worst tricks of melodrama ; a screenplay which has enough plot holes to fill the Albert Hall, a truck driver whose behaviour takes naiveté to new limits -would you give one million francs to the first to come?-, the convict's testament , the discovery on a cheesecake magazine , the good sister who ,in spite of a poor background , became a deserving nurse and stayed on the straight and narrow.

Dany Carrel saves something from the wreckage :she portrays a girl escaped from a reform school who does not want to follow her sister's footsteps and work for a meager wage ;she dreams of a luxury life,with furs, jewels,champagne and the whole kit ;abetted by a nice -but bad- boy ( a cast against type Pierre Vaneck), she sinks into shady business .He and Carrel could have been an ideal romantic couple,had they been given good material to work with.

Not a french film noir masterpiece, but an interesting story about a young couple (Dany Carel and Pierre Vaneck) living from robberies, getting more and more into problems because of stupid delinquant behavior. There are so many dark twists that it looks exagerated as a melo, so impossible to get bored, the entire casting is convincing, first Dany Carel as the pin up with no future. And my favorite is Yves Deniaud, hélas just before he died, he's exceptional as the determined old timer. And the very last shot is the last noir twist in this accumulation of noir destiny.