La part des lions

I don't know if you have seen "Le Temps des loups" aka "Heist" - 1970 - but, in this film, Aznavour played a cop, leader of the Homicide Squad, and Hossein the leader of a notorious bank robbers, called himself Dillinge. The two men were childhood friends.

This movie was directed by Sergio Gobbi.

In "La Part des Lions", produced by the same Sergio Gobbi, Aznavour and Hossein also play two childhood friends. Hossein is a petty thief who is implicated with a ruthless gang of bank robbers. Aznavour is a writer who will also follow his long time friend. Till the lost of both of them.

It's a very disenchanted film, downbeat, with good scenes.

At the beginning where the two men - Aznavour and Hossein - go to the old people's home, to visit the old man who raised them; they were orphans, found when they were babies and placed in welcome families.

A sad story, as I love.

A short prologue shows two men visiting an old one,in a retiring-home.They remember the war,when their parents (Jews) were deported : he welcomed both of them into his home and they became blood brothers.

Producer/director Sergio Gobbi is not particular about details and it's not him who has given Robert Hossein or Aznavour who have often worked with him ,their best parts ("Maldonne" "Le Temps Des Loups" "Un Beau Monstre" "Les Intrus" ))Directed by Jean Lariaga ,but produced by Gobbi himself ,"La Part Des Lions" has an absurd starting point:an educated man,who just won a literary prize (Aznavour ) comes to his "brother"'s rescue for a break-in.It takes a lot of imagination to believe that this man -take a look at his library in his apartment- can rub shoulders with sinister thieves .The rest is business as usual,a routine gangsters movie which the average user has seen a hundred times or more .