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Jean Pierre Melville was an "einzelganger" in French cinema. He did not belong to the Nouvelle vague (although his career took place during the heydays of this movement), but he certainly wasn't a part of the "cinema du papa" (as the nouvelle vague directors derogatory described their predecessors) either. "Le deuxieme souffle" is not the most well known picture from the oeuvre of Melville, but it is a connecting link between the pure film noir of "Bob le flambeur" (1956) and the more abstract (but still film noir) films such as "Le samourai" (1967) and "Le cercle rouge" (1970).

"Le deuxieme souffle" is not noticeable because of an innovative plot. The criminal who comes out of prison and wants to set some things straight and also wants to make one major robbery before he retires, we all have seen it a dozen times before. It is the way Melville tells this story.

One element you can't miss is the way each milieu has it's own code of honor. Gustave Minda (Lino Ventura) is a criminal who doesn't hesitate for a second when the job requires that he has to kill a couple of people ("Le deuxieme souffle" is a very raw film), but he is very anxious not to be known as a talebearer by his "colleagues". On the other hand commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) has to deal with very ruthless people, and in a way he understands them and sees through them. When however another commissair uses violent interrogation techniques, he takes measures to keep his profession clean.

Just like in "Le samourai" the opening scene is silent for a very long time. In this opening scene we see the escape of Gustave Minda and two other inmates. The way that Gustave has to struggle to keep pace with his fellow inmates tells us (without the use of a single word) that he is already an aging criminal.

Just like in "Du rififi chez les hommes" (1955, Jules Dassin) the preparations for the great robbery are shown in great detail. During this preparations Gustave has to hide, after all he is a prisoner on the run. Much of the movie is therefore situated in cramped claustrophobic rooms. To juxtapose all this, the execution of the crime is situated in the most open of landscapes imaginable.

Nowadays, films that last more than two hours or even two and a half hours are no longer a rarity, on the contrary, they have become almost the norm. This was not the case in 1966, when Jean-Pierre Melville directed 'Le Deuxième Souffle', a 'film noir' that assimilates and synthesizes the film experiments of the French New Wave, of which Melville was very close, but at the same time has a classic structure and narrative, starting from José Giovanni's documentary novel which it brings to screens (Giovanni also wrote the film's dialogues). More than five decades after its making, the film has a stylish look (perhaps due to the use, for the last time in Melville's career of black and white film) but also a modernity and a cursivity that make it easy and interesting to watch. I didn't get bored at any point and I never had feeling that the movie (which I saw in the full 150-minute version) is too long.

Jean-Pierre Melville addresses here a theme that he will continue in subsequent films and especially in 'Le Samouraï', which I consider to be his cinematographic masterpiece - the theme of the honor code of the mob. Solidarity among those in the dark side of the law requires mutual protection among criminals, including rivals, in the contacts with the law officers and imposes absolute silence even under the toughest investigations. The informers and those who collaborate with the police are, according to this 'moral' code, the lowest human species, and the fate that awaits them is death. The film begins with the escape of Gustave 'Gu' Minda, the main hero of the film, played by the wonderful Lino Ventura, from the prison where he was serving a life sentence. When the police inspector who follows him uses an illegal recording to compromise him, the recovery of his honor becomes more than an obsession for him, more important than love and even life.

This is one of the solid and generous roles in Lino Ventura's career, a role that suits him wonderfully. A few other excellent actors surround him: Michel Constantin, known from many other gangster films, Paul Meurisse whom I knew from the classic 'Diabolique' made a decade ago as a talkative and shrewd police inspector, and Christine Fabréga, whom I did not know until now, takes upon with aplomb the role of the hero's hopeless girlfriend. The cinematography cleverly applies the lessons learned by Melville during his Nouvelle Vague period, bringing to screen Paris and Marseille with their shadows, bars and nightclubs, with jazz music in the background in the style of the American films adored by the young French directors of the period. The arid and spectacular landscape of the southern roads of France is an excellent setting for spectacular pursuits and heists, and we also have the opportunity to see the old port of Marseille as it looked before the renovations that turned it into a tourist destination. 'Le Deuxième Souffle' is an excellent gangster movie, but also a psychological film, accurate and believable in character building, which deserves to be seen for much more reasons than nostalgia.

I don't speak French, but the acting and the subtitled dialog are outstanding throughout.

The plot and each situation, each conversation, is completely credible, and follows naturally, yet not predictably, from what came before.

A note to younger audiences: there are no highly choreographed fight scenes or stylized gun battles (though there are fights and shooting). No throw-away romantic interest. No noticeable special effects. No wisecracking. No mood music telling you what to feel.

So, if you're used to recent Hollywood fare, it may seem slow.

But, to this noir-lover, it feels fresh, yet as gritty as a run-down apartment in a hundred year-old building.

Jean-Pierre Melville and his long standing infatuation with Hollywood "Film Noir",which he was the most devoted follower of, in entire history of French cinema, produced the whole line of best French crime pictures ever. In this one, he's in absolute top form on this neatly constructed, no nonsense caper film. Building a story of old school criminals with sense of criminal honesty and honor, around 800 million heist, Melville, tells many stories, from human relations, betrayals and greed, to love and friendship that will go all the way.

The dialogs are great. Witty police inspector Comissaire Blot, beautifully portrayed by Paul Meurisse and Lino Ventura's Gustave "Gu" Minda,play the game of cat and mouse with no unnecessary talk, and no unnecessary action. Melville devoted a lot of attention to detail, and this film deservedly looks like a crime-action documentary, with no plot holes or "how the hell this or that could have happened" types of questions for the viewer, which is very important for mature audiences that appreciate classic films. I think that this may be the best film Melville made in the 60's, even better than "Army of Shadows" or the "Samourai",and was the last he made in his own studio that burned up during the production of "Samourai" in 1967, which may explain the possibilities he had, to devote time and attention to details. If you appreciate a good crime picture, be sure not to miss it.

Three prisoners break from the prison and the notorious Gustave 'Gu' Minda (Lino Ventura) is the only one that survives. He heads to Paris where he meets his lover Manouche (Christine Fabrega) and his friend and Manouche's bodyguard Alban (Michel Constantin) that take him to a hideout. Meanwhile the smart Commissary Blot (Paul Meurisse) is investigating a shooting plotted by the mobster Jo Ricci (Marcel Bozzufi) and the gangster Jacques the Lawyer (Raymond Loyer) that is murdered.

Gu decides to travel to Italy but he is short of money; his friend Orloff (Pierre Zimmer) invites him to participate in the heist of an armored truck with his friend Paul Ricci (Raymond Pellegrin) and the gangsters Antoine (Denis Manuel) and Pascal (Pierre Grasset) in Marseille. The talkative Inspector Fardiano (Paul Frankeur) is responsible for the investigation, but the persistent Commissary Blot believes that Gu is behind the scheme.

"Le Deuxième Soufflé" is a realistic police story by Jean-Pierre Melville with great performances. It is impressive how I did not feel the 150 minutes running time, since the screenplay is very well written. The code of honor of Gu contrasts with the lack of ethics of the police detectives. The duel between Gu and Blot is another attraction of this great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Os Profissionais do Crime" ("The Professionals of the Crime")

Melville's 'Le deuxième souffle' as many of his other works, reflects the same particular and distinctive style of Melville. The film proposes more or less all Melville's usual themes (relations and tensions between cops and thugs, violence, loyalty, forbidden love and friendship). Melville managed the film admirably with coherent storytelling, masterful directing, slow but infinitely good rhythm and especially his intriguing characters, portrayed by a fantastic cast. An excellent dramatic crime film that marks Jean-pierre Melville's iconic era.

A great watch.

This French film is quite long; an hour longer than most other gangster films. However, all the characters are well-developed, there is plenty of action, and the only problem of the film is that is gets a bit talky at times. The second problem of the film is that it has no real protagonist; we know the bad guys will come to a bad end and justice will be served. As heist films go, this one is pretty good, even though it is quite similar to Odds Against Tomorrow (even has similar music). But my favorite scene is the French dancing girls at Club Ricci. Isn't there always a club in a good gangster flick? Well worth your time.

I'll start with a quote from Alphonse Boudard, regarding the tendency to make crime films like Greek tragedy: Melville wants to remake the Atreidae among criminals. He means that these stories of desperate men settling scores between themselves in the bloodiest fashion possible (I lost count of the corpses in this picture) can't carry the weight of classical tragedy. The excessive length of the film (Le Samourai clocks in at 100 minutes, Un flic at 94--these stories are not much less complicated than Deuxieme souffle), means there must be scenes that drag on, until the dramatic effect is totally lost. The platinum heist seems to last forever, and it is meant to be the one big suspense moment.

The actors don't do well in general. Pierre Zimmer, playing Orloff, is given silly lines about what he has to do with Gu, if there's betrayal, but he comes off so stiff you want to fast-forward through his scenes. Lino Ventura acts well, has lots of charisma, but looks old--and his age is commented on by the younger thugs. Christine Fabrega is so terribly stiff and sculptural, you wonder how she was hired to play Manouche. It seems Simone Signoret was intended for the part, but dropped out--a great pity. Signoret would have delivered the vitality and strength that are so conspicuously lacking in Fabrega. There's only one stand-out performance: Paul Meurisse is so elegant and smart as Blot that the story takes off every time he comes into the frame. If you have seen Les Diaboliques, you'll know how good he is.

The camera work is mediocre; a washed-out b/w that looks more like television than Melville's great pictures of the 50's. Le deuxieme soufflé is one of the lower points in this man's output.

What I find is that a great film of great length, whether slow paced or not, is life a sheep in wolf's clothing. However intimidating a run time may look, the greats go by quicker than many 90 minute efforts. Whether it's Solaris(1972) and Andrei Rubev(1966) in just short o9f 3 hours, or Seven Samurai(1954) and Godfather II(1974) in excess of 200 minutes, there films to me never feel their length and always justify it. While many have commented on "Second Wind" (using the English title for simplicity's sake) running time, rest assured, it too is deceptive.

The film opens abruptly into the finale of an escape sequence from prison, giving no breathing room as you are thrown into the action. One man dies but the other two make it out, as we go to an atmospheric opening credits sequence of the two running through the forest, with little to no music. Only one of the escapees is of concern to us, Gustave Minda (regularly called Gu), put behind bars for a train robbery gone wrong. He comes back to his old stomping grounds, rescuing his sister and loyal friend from a pair of thugs. Their murder further brings heat down on him in a case led by Blot, a wise cracking but crafty inspector. Many plot points are running intersect, including a battle over the cigarette business and the forming of a heist, the latter of which Gu is drawn into in order to have some money when he leaves the country. While there are a lot of characters and going ons to keep track of, as long as one is paying attention, following along is simple, as Melville masterfully brings these plot points together.

This is a dialogue and character heavy movie, making it more similar to "Bob the Gambler" (1955) than "Le Samurai(1967). While maybe not as snappy as Godard, or Tarantino for a more modern example, Melville's films were always strong in dialogue, and this is no exception. This movie is composed of a string of home running scenes. Whether it's humorous, like inspector Blot's sarcastic rant on the unwillingness of a restaurant's employees and customers to comment on the shooting that had occurred, or serious, such as a trio of gangsters confronting a man they believe set them up, there are no wasted scenes or dull moments, whether five minutes or twenty. There's nothing here story wise that is of particularly new ground: a noir style fatalism, a police force as corrupt as the criminals they pursue, political intrigue and betrayals, however it doesn't matter. Originality is welcome but not necessary in anything, and here we see these familiar threads executed with such enthusiasm, backed by strong performances all around, that it hardly matters whether one has seen these things before. If there is one possibly original aspect, it is in it's ending which I won't spoil here. It's a small, but important moment, and much like his follow up "Le Samurai"(1967), widely open to interpretation.

Melville is known for his awesome visuals and mood, and this is no exception. His love of noir is apparent in the perfectly dark lighting, combined with an often minimal soundtrack that aids in creating a mood of dread in many scenes. This is actually a much more subdued effort for Melville in that regard, but it works here as the focus is much more on story and characters.

Not to be missed for fans of crime films.

I had seen nearly everything that is readily available from Jean-Pierre Melville in the United States by the time I got to Le Deuxieme soufflé, which may be part of why I didn't respond overwhelmingly to it. After such challenging, methodical and precisely existential crime masterpieces as Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge, Bob le flambeur and the underrated Le Doulos, this one just seemed to not pack the same kind of punch that the others did. Again, this may be the fault on the viewer for seeing this last among his mostly thriller-oriented oeuvre, but perhaps it's also some of Melville's fault too; again and again, as the dedicated and ruthless auteur that he was (one of the great French directors I would argue), he kept coming back to men in trench-coats with grim expressions figuring out on both sides- criminal and detective- of how to plot the next move or, for the former, how to keep from the fatalism of the plot.

Which, for Melville, is something that comes second nature. The difference, perhaps, in this case is that the length (a whopping two and a half hours, longer than both The Red Circle and Army of Shadows) and the amount of details in the structure of the story (i.e. what happened on such and such a day made this happened could've been snipped, albeit I can't pinpoint to which) bog down some of the more successful aspects to the picture. Which is also to say that for all of its minor misgivings, Le Deuxieme soufflé (or, simply, The Second Breath) is near-classic Melville, with nail-bitingly tense suspense scenes like the opening escape from the prison and the latter heist sequence- somewhat more obvious and less coolly ambitious as Red Circle.

There's the amazing cinematography as well, a trademark of Melville and his crew to make things gritty but smooth in precision and style, and the performances from Paul Meurisse as the Detective (maybe my favorite performance of the picture just for the intelligence he imbues in the character), and Lino Ventura as one of the quintessential Melville anti-heroes, Gu, the convict who wants in on the big 200 million heist. And even as it could be Melville's most "talky" picture after Bob le flambeur (which is relative to how pleasantly light, or how seemingly sparse, his films are with dialog), when the characters speak it's to the point of with some quotable spunk to them.

There's an icy, unspoken angst in Melville's world of criminals, almost questioning but still true to the notion of the 'policier', where you'd want the criminals to get away with it if the detective wasn't so doggone determined all the time. It's another fine piece of film-making from the director, just not an all-time-top flick - more along the lines of Un flic. 8.5/10

Stylistically captures the essence of crime, criminals, their presence among those who think they are neither; good cops; not so smart cops who think they are smart enough; and the meaning of loyalty. Don't die without having seen it.

Jean Pierre Melville does a masterful job of capturing the mind of the gangster. We have a cruel executioner who escapes prison with his compadres. In the process of a visit, he finds that his actions, even though innocent at times, lead to violence and death. The natural result is a policeman who gets on his case, aware of the evil the guy has done. He is like a bulldog as he pursues Gu. Gu is a frightening person and if one made a mistake it would cost you dearly. Eventually, we have the obligatory shootout. The strength of this film, which could have been ordinary, is the camera and what it does to push the action. There are numerous settings that squeeze action as well. I have really enjoyed Melville, coming upon him later in my life.

I saw this at London's National Film Theatre last night and I must admit to being more than a little bit disappointed. This appears to mark the turning point where Melville lost all real interest in character (after the wonderful Le Doulos and the underrated L'Aine Des Ferchaux) and turned his attention to set piece robberies and shoot outs. The problem is, that this is still a long and wordy script, with an awful lot of very pointless talk, connecting up some visually excellent scenes. The highlight of the film, the hijack of an armoured car on a deserted mountain road, foreshadows the action techniques -shaky camerawork, fast cutting - used by Ridley Scott in Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Hannibal; unfortunately it's over in seconds. There are other great scenes, but dramatically they lead nowhere. For example, one gangster scouts the site of an intended meeting, works out where he might be standing when there's trouble, and hides a gun nearby. When he leaves, an adversary comes into the room, goes through the same thought processes, and finds and removes the gun. But the scene never pays off, as the first gangster never ends up reaching for the missing weapon. Performance wise two people stand out - Paul Meurisse as the compassionate, intelligent and very, very funny Inspector Blot, and Pierre Zimmer as Orloff, the gangster who serves as the moral touchstone for his peers.

About three quarters of the way through the film turns from an escaped convict and heist movie into the story of a man trying to prove that he hasn't been a police informer/collaborator. As with a lot of Melville's gangster vs police movies (a big favourite with the French) you can't help feeling that he's really dealing with the issue of wartime resistance to the German occupation. To my mind, though, Melville seems more interested in shoring up the myth of resistance rather than dealing with the truth (as Louis Malle tried to in Lacombe, Lucien, resulting in his effective exile from France for the rest of his life).

The scene where Paul is interrogated by the police was apparently edited at the insistence of France's censors to remove the scenes of water being poured down his throat. What remains is a very obviously edited scene which doesn't work.

Anyway, not an awful movie, but a messy one. Can't help feeling that maybe Melville got interested in something else and couldn't be bothered to finish it properly.

Fell asleep twice.

I don't often say this, but this movie needed to be shorter. A fair bit shorter. I enjoyed it, and it's easy to see its influence especially over Quentin Tarantino, but I don't think it does quite enough with its time, especially in the first half. The story of an escaped convict who joins in on a heist outside of Marseille in order to help fund his life on the lam outside of France is full of the right characters, motivations, and twisting plot to entertain, but when every scene feels like something Robert Bresson would have edited, it kind of drags the whole experience down a bit. I really think I would have gotten more out of it if the film were simply paced a bit faster, cutting maybe ten minutes off of the running time.

Gu (Lino Ventura) escapes from prison in the middle of an extended sentence for a botched gold heist along with two other prisoners and makes his way to Paris. Meanwhile in Marseille Paul Ricci (Raymond Pellegrin) is organizing the heist of over a billion francs worth of platinum. He has three men backing him up, including Jeannot (Albert Dagnant). Everything is ready for the heist at the end of the following month, and Jeannot decides to go to Paris to take care of a rival, killing him and getting mortally wounded by Alban (Michel Constantin) in the shootout. Alban functions as the bodyguard to Manouche (Christine Fabrega), Gu's sister, who learns of Gu's escape and knows that she has to hide him and figure out a way to get him out of the country safely. Into all of this steps Inspector Blot (Paul Meurisse), a Parisian policeman who knows all of the players and is out to get Gu back into prison.

The main driver through all of this is supposed to be Gu's criminal code, a common idea of ethics in the underworld in Melville's work. However, my problem is that Gu is sitting alone in a room for quite a long time from when he gets to Paris, kills a couple of low-level hoods trying to threaten Manouche, and then starts his way to Marseille. The attention to detail of Gu's life in his glorified prison cell doesn't really contribute much. There's something there about the meagerness of his existence, his reliance on other people just for survival, and his limited movement that's supposed to feed his later desire to take part in the dangerous platinum heist, but he has dialogue later that simplifies the matter as just he needs money if he's going to live any kind of life on the lam. In short, I feel like Melville takes a very long time to say very little in the film's first half.

The film picks up with the heist, though. Through Orloff (Pierre Zimmer), a criminal who works along most of the time and Paul offered the fourth spot to after the death of Jeannot, Gu learns of the heist and gets invited to take part since Orloff won't, feeling like the risk isn't worth any money. The heist is paced like the rest of the film, but with clear stakes, goals, and action, the slower pace actually ends up working in the film's favor here. It creates tension. I never felt like Gu sitting in his little apartment was tense, but four men waiting in the hills of Southern France for two cops escorting a van full of platinum is tense.

The heist goes largely according to plan, and they get away with their money. The second half of the film is the noose tightening around Gu by both Jo (Marcel Bozzuffi), Paul's brother. Things feel like they are going to continue to go well as Gu waits for the heat to die down in his little cottage outside of Marseille when he's identified, despite his new mustache, by one of the guards from his prison who is on vacation. Blot swoops in and tricks Gu into naming Paul as a coconspirator in the heist which has taken the front pages of France's newspapers by storm. This recorded bit of testimony won't be admissible in court, but it's enough to get Blot to convince the local police chief Fardiano (Paul Frankeur) to pick up Paul and pretty much torture him. Word gets out that Gu gave up Paul, and that's how Jo gets involved, roping in the other two members of the heist crew out of fear that Gu will also give them up.

The focus moves curiously from Gu to Orloff, though. I was really on board with the film after the heist, but the lack of attention to Gu in favor of Orloff feels off to me. Orloff, out of prison and able to speak with people like Manouche and Jo, he ends up the driver for the final meeting instead of Gu.

Gu escapes from the hospital after he injures himself in police custody, kidnaps Fardiano and forces him to write a confession about the underhanded and illegal nature of his methods before he goes to meet with Jo and the two other crew members. This faceoff is pure Tarantino and obviously a huge influence on him. It's Gu protesting his innocence (in very cool, masculine tones, mind you) while holding a room of three hoods up with a pair of guns. It's quality stuff.

Overall, though, I find the film entertaining but drawn out. I really don't think you need to cut the film in half or anything, but this is definitely Jean-Pierre Melville being self-indulgent. Still, self-indulgent Melville is still pretty good stuff. Gu's journey from escaped criminal to crew member to desperately clearing his own name is a strong narrative throughline. The intertwining of Gu and Jo, that actually begins near the start of the film, is a nicely complicated thread that ties a whole lot of the film together. I just feel like long stretches of this film are kind of dull. There's really good stuff throughout, including the central heist, but this is a rare example where I feel like a film really could have used some trimming. As a character piece, not enough gets done with Gu for all the focus we get on him early. For a thriller, not enough happens in the face of the quiet moments. It's kind of in between the two genres instead of finding a way to bring them together as a single cohesive work.

Still, it is pretty good.

Why do I always care about thieves in heist films, no matter how bad they are? As is common in Jean-Pierre Melville's later films, this meticulously crafted crime film opens with a title card that epigrammatically sets out a foreboding epigram that molds ostensible meaning into the action: "A man is given but one right at birth: to choose his own death. But if he chooses because he's weary of his own life, then his entire existence has been without meaning." It's invariably inhibiting to totally apply these fatalistic, existential aphorisms to the films that thus proceed, but they tend to cast a distinct outlook across the film. I'm not so sure that this slow, deliberate caper, or any of Melville's others for that matter, seeks all of the indications of this quote, but its pretext of fate, mortality and grim, solipsistic judgment corresponds with the essential themes of the film.

Like Le Cercle Rouge, Le Deuxième Soufflé is a nominal saga, an antithetical and composite film in which the life seems as if to impose and simultaneously exhale. Ventura's performance is both innate and disciplined by his claustrophobic settings. There are several instances set within moving cars, less to expand the atmosphere than to show the inhibition of the space they employ.

What frustrates and somewhat detaches me however is that Melville never seems to give his characters any involved cognitive measure. They're characterized and assessed by the black and white of their behavior. Gu is a ruthless, intractable and curtailed presence who gains recognition, even from Inspector Blot, another wonderfully named character, played by Paul Meurisse, who respects his deadly actions because he eventually complies with and doesn't veer from his dang "code."

Much of this 1966 cops-and-robbers film can be explained just in terms of its distilled preoccupation with the reference to the conventions regarding the treatment of Chandler, McBain, W.R. Burnett, Jim Thompson, stylish Hollywood crime dramas, and classic American gangster pictures. Melville's films in this mode have the element of photogenics, conformity to modern ideas and models nourished by a shadowy nonchalance and the characters' affectedly memorialized mannerisms. For instance when a dutiful thug prepares to meet the other gang members, casing the place first, but also anticipating the blanket preconditions of the scene. This dogmatic behavior underscores the salutary definitions of these characters, their movements having a textbook role. You can also see Melville's influence on Tarantino's Jackie Brown when the thug is dramatically pre-performing the differing poses of the impending standoff. Also, it's not until Gu changes into clothing more mindfully echoing that of a gangster that he is allowed to free himself from being so secretive and concealed.

The sullen, inflamed and exceedingly conventionalized quality of this typified film conveys Melville's immersion in the downbeat deliberation of the play of loyalty and destined disloyalty. With this transcendent crime film, as per Melville's usual, complete with another great title, Second Wind, Melville pushes the tonal qualities and gray scale of the image to new levels. The movie's preoccupation with issues of fellowship, abnormally all-consuming professionalism, silence, and duplicity reverberates with Melville's own distinction as an egocentric, tight-lipped, fringe-dwelling figure in French cinema, who despite his success never truly declared participation or involvement in any founded generation or evolution of filmmakers.

Melville had the actors and the boredom to justify arthouse status.

Does it make it thrilling? No! Just interesting to watch as.an exercise in innovation. It mixes the clair obscur of a Fritz Lang with the nouvelle vague possibilities.it plays with the false realism and the true voyeurism of the times.

Without Melville, a probable slowing down of the new noir, with Melville an evident definition of the obvious anti-hero.

The remake has been shot down by critics, unjustified ans subservient, although it's all the same, in a more modern context, with less manicheiïst players. In the end they both suffer the same.

So without it, cinema would be much more boring than it is, with it, you've seen it a hundred times. The problem of creators.

This milestone of the French 'film policier' although one of director Jean-Pierre Melville's most commercially successful is, strangely enough, one of his most underrated and least discussed. The style is minimalist and almost Bressonian in its restraint whilst its pre-title opening is a nod to Bresson's 'A Man escaped'.

It has been adapted from a novel by José Giovanni who in his previous existence as Joseph Damiani, had been a Vichy collaborationist and convicted murderer whose death sentence had been commuted to hard labour and whose stories are infused with his knowledge of the underworld and acquaintance with some of France's most hardened criminals. The film censors demanded that the scene in which the Ricci of Raymond Pellegrin has water poured down his throat to extract a confession be drastically cut as this method had been used by the French Gestapo and with which Giovanni, as a former member of that delightful organisation, would have been all too familiar. This scene also blurs the moral boundaries between the lawmakers and the lawbreakers!

Despite having to have one's moral compass to hand, the film is utterly compelling and masterly in its conception, construction, framing, montage, meticulous detail and its understated performances, notably Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse as ruthless robber and clever cop. Both these superlative actors were to be on the same side in Melville's next film 'L'Armée des Ombres' in which he swaps the underworld for the underground. The only occasions on which Ventura's Manda blows his cool are when he is mistakenly thought to be a squealer which reflects Melville's time in the French Resistance when loyalty was at a premium and betrayal a common currency. Melville himself said of Manda that 'he is a danger to society but he has preserved a sort of purity' which basically sums up this director's attitude to his gangster heroes.

Lino Ventura escapes from prison and heads to Paris, where he connects with old lover Christine Fabréga. They arrange to leave the country. However, while she has enough money for both of them, he wants his own money. He takes part in a huge platinum robbery. But Commissaire Paul Meurisse sniffs out what's going on, and gets the name of one of the other robbers, Raymond Pellegrin, on tape. Meurisse heads back to Paris, and leaves the rest to routineer Paul Frankeur, who pulls the third degree to no avail, and leaks the information to the papers. Now the crooks are after Ventura too.

Melville paces this movie slowly and deliberately, and has cinematographer Marcel Combes light it flatly. These effects contributes an air of verisimilitude, but Melville was never interested in reality. His characters and stories took place in a world in which noble, honest men exist on both sides of the law, serving some higher purpose obvious only to them, while others exist only for their own advancement, whether it be money, women, or their names in the paper. Ventura is on the side of the angels. See if you can spot the others.

... from France and French director Jean-Pierre Melville

An aging criminal, Gustave "Gu" Minde, breaks out of prison after having been there for ten years and is therefore being searched for by the police. He wanted to hide out in another country, but has insufficient funds to do so. He signs on to one last caper so he can retire - the heist of 800 million francs worth of platinum from an armored car. This will require the killing of the two motorcycle cops accompanying the armored car, and the killing of one of them is Gu's part in the crime. He doesn't like the idea of doing this, but ultimately looks upon it as just business, not personal - like he's firing some long time employee because of business conditions. Gu's attempt at staying free is complicated by Commissaire Blot, who is hot on his trail. Complications ensue.

This film at over 150 minutes in length did not drag at all, even though the heist doesn't occur until about 90 minutes into the film, because the characters are fascinating, even though there is a dearth of dialogue, maybe BECAUSE there is a dearth of dialogue. What these characters do speaks for themselves.

Gu is very interesting - A real antihero. We learn he has killed before the events in this film, and as I mentioned before he is not a psychopath who enjoys killing but does it when he considers it necessary. But what really bothers him is if his reputation for never talking to the authorities and giving up associates is impugned. For that reputation he will do most anything to restore his "honor", and that leads to the interesting conclusion.

The little things are very important in this film - the shot of the ants at work on the ground as the robbers wait for the armored car to appear on the desolate road, and a scene of Gu enjoying a good meal after having been in prison for so long.

I'd recommend this one. It was one of the most interesting heist films I've seen made in any nation. Kudos to Eddie Muller for showing this on Turner Classic Movie's Noir Alley.