A caper film set in a casino, made after the original OCEAN’S 11 (Lewis Milestone, 1960) equally glamorous but much better. Jean Gabin plays an ex-con fresh out of jail and ready for a final heist. He’s too old to pull off the job by himself but he’s met a petty thief in the slammer who’ll do nicely – Alain Delon. Delon fought to get the part – originally intended for Jean-Louis Trintignant – took a pay cut and distribution rights in lieu of salary (Japan – the beginnings of his superstardom there, Russia and Argentina). Ostensibly, Delon felt he’d been in too many art films recently (for Antonioni and Visconti) and wanted a chance at a mainstream popular success. This turned out to be one of the biggest of his career. And he gets a superb ‘star entrance’ (see below):

In the past I’ve heard myself argue that whilst dialogue is almost everything in a play it is not in itself a screenplay and is not that important on film. Bad dialogue doesn’t necessarily ruin it. See for example any of James Cameron’s. If the direction is no good, if the actors can’t act, if the costumes make them look silly, if an editor can’t create rhythm or sense, good dialogue won’t save a movie. That said, it’s such a joy to hear Michel Audiard’s brilliant words from the mouths of these actors that it now makes me think how the lack of good dialogue in much of contemporary cinema has left audiences bereft.

Louis Paget is credited as cinematographer, André Dumaitre as cameraman. In French, the term for cameraman is ‘cadreur’, which has connotations of composition and/or framing, and whether the compositions are due to Verneuil, Paget or Dumaitre, alone or in combination, they’re smashing: superb use of mirrors, lines, screens, always at a slight diagonal making the world the actors move in sexy and dangerous.

This is a key film in Delon’s evolving star persona, first presented as delinquent jazz-listening jail-bird, then moving onto playing the upper-crust playboy necessary to pull off the heist, and moving easily from one to the other. It’s almost certainly influenced by TO CATCH A THIEF – the rooftop shots — and one also detects an influence on the whole concept of IT TAKES A THIEF, with Robert Wagner. The New York Times listed it in its top ten for the year.

Fans of La Bandera and Le Bel Equipe will delight in Vivian Romance’s reunion with Gabin here.

José Arroyo