Les Tueurs de San Francisco

In the wake of having watched Alain Delon in Joseph Losey's THE ASSASSINATION OF TROTSKY (1972), I decided to check out three other vehicles of his I had taped off TV over the last few months – beginning with this one, which emerges to be just as pretentious as Losey's film! Best described as a beatnik noir, we've seen this film's story told a million times before – that of a criminal who can't escape his past, dogged as much by old associates as by an obsessive police nemesis. Consequently, director Nelson and cinematographer Robert Burks (best-known for his longtime collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock) handle the generally clichéd material for more than it's worth – even if my viewing was somewhat compromised by the film being panned-and-scanned.

Delon and Ann-Margret make for a handsome couple - although she occasionally tries too hard and her histrionics seem more at home in a Tennessee Williams melodrama; Van Heflin is appropriately world-weary as the aging cop, Jack Palance is typically intense as a crime boss and Delon's elder brother. The rest of Palance's gang is made up of the odd-looking and memorably creepy John Davis Chandler and Tony Musante – while Jeff Corey appears as Heflin's irate superior. The film's screenwriter Zekial Marko (adapting his own novel) is featured in an unintentionally hilarious supporting role as a druggie who shares a cell with Delon – we follow his case intermittently throughout (for no very good reason other than to justify the similarly hapless Delon's pursuit of crime) via newspaper clippings, denoting Marko's conviction to the gas chamber and eventually his suicide! The film is aided by a jazzy score courtesy of Lalo Schifrin, who seemed to specialize in crime/police dramas. The elaborate heist half-way through is an expected highlight, which then leads to a predictably downbeat and body-strewn climax.