Un gettone per il patibolo

I saw this film under the title Special Correspondent. The print I saw was dubbed into English as well as panned and scanned; however, the film's mediocre plot would only have benefited so much from a better screening.

The plot has a bored suit and tie businessman (Jean-Louis Trintignant) one day leaving his car in traffic and abandoning his respected life. The man drifts for a couple days until he happens to meet a criminal planning a diamond heist. This seems like an exciting change of pace to the bored hero, so he joins the thief and another man for what promises to be an easy, inside job. The heist goes wrong when the three are double crossed by the men who set up the heist. The former businessman finds himself alone still alive. On the run, he is picked up by the girlfriend (Marie-Jose Nat, the director's wife) of the man who double crossed the hero and his partners. She wants the former businessman to rob her boyfriend and his men, one of whom is a stone killer.

This is familiar territory. The film gets more familiar as the businessman and the gangster's girl go on the run to Monte Carlo with the police and the unstoppable killer in pursuit. A simple plot is not always a hindrance in a thriller, but Diamond Safari is simply too pokey, stopping for dull romantic interludes (like the lovers strolling in the countryside). I usually like Jean-Louis Trintignant, and he is fine here. However, Marie-Jose Nat does not generate enough sultriness for the viewer to understand why men are so willing to follow her. Diamond Safari (or Special Correspondent) is not terrible, just overly familiar, the kind of movie one watches with half interest on a lazy afternoon and forgets about two days later.

Who cares about the story? It's a kind of PIERROT LE FOU rip-off, but in a more classical manner, focusing on an anti hero, a loser, a man fighting against all odds, in a struggle lost in advance. The audience fond of sixties jazzy score won't be dispappointed. Trintignant is excellent here, as a maginficent loser. I like this kind of films. Don't confound Marie José Nat's chracter as Elektre with Sophie Marceau's character in James Bond adventure THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH. Also Elektra, another kind of femme fatale, but rather close after all. Heavily influenced by the Nouvelle Vague with a bit of Claude Lelouch like touch. I love the little sequence, near the end, on the bench, in Monte Carlo, when J L Trintignant talks with the old lady gambler who explains her empty life, spending time gambling money at the casino. Very important sentence, about the emptiness of life. The best of this movie, that explains the whole thing. Forget the gunfights. I usually confound this movie with LE CHIEN FOU, same year, same plot, with Jean Louis Trintignant instead of Claude Brasseur. And this same year 1966, you had OBJECTIF 500 MILLIONS, another desperate crime movie, with this time Bruno Cremer as the poor lead loser character.

Michel Drach had always been a director who never knew what he might do.One of his first efforts "on n'enterre pas le dimanche" (1959) was an offbeat film noir,whose hero was a black man,which was unusual for the time.Before entering his most fruitful period ("Elise ou la vraie vie" "les violons du bal") he tried his hand at thrillers and he made "safari diamants" with his then wife Marie-José Nat and Jean -Louis Trintignant.

The movie begins with Trintignant wandering through the city while complaining about his pointless life,with voice-over galore.He gets involved in a diamonds theft and meets a woman ,Elektra ,with whom he falls in love-but ,as for her ,we will never know what she likes best :he or the diamonds-Trintignant and Nat were perhaps not the right choose -both of them are better with intimate material-and there's not much chemistry between them.The part of the lovers with the Police on their tail was not tailor-made for them,but German Horst Frank is a competent villain.Mildly entertaining.