An underrated crime flick from the early seventies with rather good actors, and also an improbable cast, but not do after all. Henry Silva, one great heavy from the USA and André Pousse, the equivalent of Silva but from France. As was Lino Ventura vs Leo Gordon in Claude Sautet's L'ARME A GAUCHE or Michel Constantin and Charles Bronson in Terry Young's DE LA PART DES COPAINS, or even Richard Crenna and Alain Delon in Melville's UN FLIC. I love this. In this film, I would not have been surprised to see Marcel Bozzuffi. He and Pousse were together in Roger Pigaut's COMPTES A REBOURS.
The story of an escaped con - Silva - who pulls a sort of fake heist in order to trick, swindle some important hoods like him. Good performances in this film made by a director who will later give us some erotic stuff, as did Claude Bernard Aubert, the former director of L'AFFAIRE DOMINICI.
One last word on the novelist whose this screenplay was written from: Jacques Risser. This is also an underrated crime author, a sort of poor man's Auguste Le Breton whom he was a close friend. Risser was a former safe cracker who spent many years behind bars and who has cell mates such as ex OAS leaders, from the Algeria war. According to Le Breton, Risser could have written great stories from these guys. But he preferred hard boiled gangster movies. I must admit that he was not as interesting as Pierre Lesou. But he deserves to be discovered again.
The story of an escaped con - Silva - who pulls a sort of fake heist in order to trick, swindle some important hoods like him. Good performances in this film made by a director who will later give us some erotic stuff, as did Claude Bernard Aubert, the former director of L'AFFAIRE DOMINICI.
One last word on the novelist whose this screenplay was written from: Jacques Risser. This is also an underrated crime author, a sort of poor man's Auguste Le Breton whom he was a close friend. Risser was a former safe cracker who spent many years behind bars and who has cell mates such as ex OAS leaders, from the Algeria war. According to Le Breton, Risser could have written great stories from these guys. But he preferred hard boiled gangster movies. I must admit that he was not as interesting as Pierre Lesou. But he deserves to be discovered again.