Melville’s highly influential, playful gangster film lovingly sketches Montmartre as both a realistic geography and a cartoon milieu of two-bit criminal Paris. An homage to the mood and atmosphere of the American gangster film, its low-budget joie de vivre and existential world-weariness paved the way for the nouvelle vague. Evocatively shot and featuring a magnificently cool and knowing performance by Roger Duchesne as the compulsive gambler Bob.
Synopsis by Adrian Danks.
PG
Roger Duchesne, Isabelle Corey, Daniel Cauchy, André Garet
Jean-Pierre Melville