The French list .....

Continuing our Lists theme, 25 essential French flicks we love, from the Fifties to the Seventies, again two maximum from each director ... (AND, Those French Tough Guys). 

• LA RONDE (1950) / MADAME DE … (1953) - Ophuls. Classic French cinema avec Danielle Darrieux & Co. 
• M RIPOIS (KNAVE OF HEARTS) 1954 / PLEIN SOLEIL (1959) – Rene Clement: Gerard Philipe and Alain Delon both at peak perfection in Clement's perfect films. Maurice Ronet is also terrific in SOLEIL as a very unpleasant Dickie Greenleaf ,,,,
• AND GOD CREATED WOMAN / HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT – as was Bardot in 1956 and 1958 in these Vadim scorchers! She WAS the female James Dean.
• LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD (1958) / LE FEU FOLLET (1963) – Malle - Malle's electrifying films still dazzle now, as does Maurice Ronet and Moreau ...
• LOLA (1961) / BAY OF ANGELS (1963) – Demy - 2 gleaming monochrome classics, as good as Demy's musicals, Anouk and Moreau at their best (Of course we love Demy's 2 pastel musicals and his 2 enchanting fairy tales as well, Demy label).
• AMELIE, OU TE TEMPS D’AIMER – Michel Drach, 1961 - not seen since at the Academy in Oxford Street London in 1964 when I was 18. Jean Sorel and a Victorian romance at moody Mont St Michel (my favourite place in France). 
• UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME - Lelouch. We just love Anouk and Trintignant and that lush score and visuals. Perfectly 1966
• LA FEMME INFIDELE / INNOCENTS WITH DIRTY HANDS (1975) – Chabrol's valentines to Stephane and Romy ... (just two from my 14 disk Chabrol set)
• UNDER THE SAND / TIME TO LEAVE – Ozon. A brace of Ozon classics. TIME TO LEAVE is harrowing, Rampling is perfect UNDER THE SAND (as was Deneuve in POTICHE).
• 400 BLOWS / HISTORY OF ADELE H. – Truffaut. Isabelle Adjani mesmerises as Adele H in 1975. and the first Antoine Doinel from 1959 is New Wave personified. 
  
• LES DRAGUEURS  - Mocky. More perfect 1959 French new wave as we take in Paris by night with Anouk and Belinda Lee.
• CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 – Agnes Varda, 1962. 
• LES VALSEUSES - Blier's shocker from 1974 still packs a punch as tearaways young Depardieu and Dewaere go on the rampage, in those flaired jeans. 
• THE BEST WAY TO WALK – Miller. Claude Miller's delicious 1976 drama
• THE WILD REEDS (LES ROSEAUX SAUVAGES)  – Techine. Andre Techine's gay classic from 1994, Gael Morel shines. 
• INDOCHINE – Wargnier - A Deneuve epic from 1992, almost a French GWTW.
  
• CESAR & ROSALIE – Sautet. Romy and Montand are perfect leads. One of Schneider's 6 with Claude Sautet, each is perfect. 
• PLAYTIME -Tati. TRAFIC is fabulous too as Monsieur Hulot goes travelling, 

12 FRENCH TOUGH GUYS:

• RIFIFI – Hossein in Dassin's 1955 masterclass
• MELODIE EN SOUS SOL – Verneuil's 1963 caper with Gabin & hot shot young Delon as they rob a Cannes casino, the playoff is perfect, 
• LE SAMOURAI – Melville's masterpiece from 1967
• LE HOMME D’ RIO – De Broca. Belmondo dazzles in Rio in 1964 with Dorleac. 
• BORSALINO – Deray. Delon and Belmondo ramp up the glamour in 1970
• THE WICKED GO TO HELL - Hossein's slick 1955 thriller with his wife Marina Vlady, and Henri Vidal.
• TOI LE VENIN -  Slick Hossein thriller from 1958, "Night is not for sleep" indeed! 
  
• UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE (KISS FOR A KILLER) - Super Verneuil 1957 thriller with Vidal and Mylene Demongeot and Isa Miranda. 
• CHAIR DE POULE – Duvivier's jet black thriller from 1963 with Sorel and Hossein (right)
• LE CIRCLE ROUGE / ARMY OF SHADOWS – Melville's downbeat wartime epic with Signoret, Ventura & Co. 

More on all these at labels, particularly PLEIN SOLEIL, MR RIPLEY etc. 

RIP, continued ...

Michele Morgan  (1920 – 2016) aged 96. Glamorous French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades in both French cinema and Hollywood features. She was the inaugural winner of the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1992, she was given an Honorary Cesar Award or her contributions to French cinema. 

I recently reviewed her as FABIOLA, one of the first peplums in 1949, with her then husband Henri Vidal, left, a favourite of ours, see label, who died in 1959. Morgan's best films include LE QUAI DES BRUMES in 1939 with Gabin, and THE FALLEN IDOL.She did PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES with Bogart. She certainly made a raincoat and beret the essence of French chic. 

Other venerable French legends include Danielle Darrieux now 99 (100 next May) and Micheline Presle, 94. Even Jeanne Moreau is 88, and Emmanuelle Riva 89.

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917-2016), aged 99. The last of the legendary Hungarian Gabor sisters, Zsa Zsa (Miss Hungary in 1936) became one of the first celebrities famous for being famous, but she was a witty, funny lady with all those quips about husbands (she had nine, including George Sanders) and jewels. She was the QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE, and also effective in Huston's MOULIN ROUGE in 1953. She was deliciously funny too in WE'RE NOT MARRIED in 1952. She also pops up in Orson's TOUCH OF EVIL, one of her many cameo roles. RIP dahling.

Jean Dawnay (1925 - 2016), aged 91. Another lady of style and elegance, Dawnay was one of the original British supermodels of the 1950s and 60s. Princess George Galitzine, who has died aged 91, was prominent in many charitable enterprises, most notably the Prince George Galitzine Library in St Petersburg, the Terence Rattigan Society and UK Youth, having been world-famous as Jean Dawnay, a top model for Christian Dior and the last remaining “supermodel” from the 1950s.

She epitomised style and elegance and was both quick-witted and clear-thinking, as evidenced by her performances as a panellist on the popular television series What’s My Line? She was an optimist, and everything she did was conducted with not only wisdom but also sparkle and zest.

I knew the name and the photos, but did not realise what a fascinating life. She was working at Bletchley Park during the war years, then became one of the first air hostesses, and acted as hostess for Terence Rattigan (he based the character of Anne Shankland in SEPARATE TABLES on her). She tried acting as well, with Frankie Vaughan in the enjoyable 1958 WONDERFUL THINGS, and then married a Russian prince.  

French gangster flicks

French gangster films of the Fifties and Sixties are often said to be derivative of their American film noirs, but its a genre I can return to happily many times, in the company of directors like Meville and Duvivier, and those players who sum it all up: Gabin, Delon, Belmondo, Hossein,Vidal ...

I particuarly like Henri Verneuil's 1963 MELODIE EN SOUS SOL (or THE BIG SNATCH) where old lag Jean Gabin comes out of prison with one last heist in mind, on a Cannes casino, and hires impulsive, if not reckless, young hotshot Delon to help it. Its taut, tense, the raid goes ok, and then there is that climax at the swimming pool with the bag of swag... 

The daddy of all French heist movies must be Dassin's RIFIFI in 1955, with that long central silent robbery carried out in real time (Dassin did it again, more colourfully in his 1964 TOPKAPI); one of the RIFIFI guys Robert Hossein directed a lot of tense thrillers too, superior B-movies perhaps, but try looking away from  THE WICKED GO TO HELL or  TOI, LE VENIN or UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE. (Hossein label).   

Jean-Pierre Melville's taut, spare, acerbic thrillers like 1967's LE SAMOURAI (Delon as ice cool killer - see review, Delon label), and his exemplary ARMY OF SHADOWS in 1969 are masterworks, and we like LE CERCLE ROUGE too (Delon, Montand, Ventura) and the delightfully silly THE SICILIAN CLAN where hi-jacking an airliner in flight seems so easy, as Delon and Gabin again team and fall out while seen-it-all cop Ventura is on their trail ....  
  

We also particularly like Duvivier' CHAIR DE POULE (HIGHWAY PICKUP) that jet-black noir from 1963 with hoods Hossein and Jean Sorel (both in their 80s now and still going, as indeed are Delon and Belmondo) fall out over that robbery and a duplicitous dame. Its brilliant: as per: 
http://osullivan60.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/fantastic-french-flick.html

Rene Clement scored here too, as with his masterwork PLEIN SOLEIL and with Delon again in LES FELINS in 1963.  Get a Delon or Belmondo or Melville boxset and enjoy. Malle's LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD too in 1958 ... while Alain and Belmondo are great fun in BORSALINO (left) in 1970.
Below: Sorel and Hossein in CHAIR DE POULE, 1963 - and, right, in 2015.

People We Like: Gerard Philipe

KNAVE OF HEARTS, 1954

It was tragic that Gerard Philipe (1922-1959) died so young, of cancer, aged 36 in 1959 - just as those new guys Delon and Belmondo were taking off. (that other attractive French actor Henri Vidal also died that year, aged 40 - of a heart attack). Philipe was such an attractive presence and would surely have achieved so much more. He didn't even need to go to Hollywood ... his first big hit was FANFAN LA TULIPE in 1952 for Christian-Jacque, with luscious Gina Lollobrigida, its still a delicious adventure now.

KNAVE OF HEARTS (or MONSIEUR RIPOIS) Rene Clement’s 1954 film about a romantic Frenchman on the loose in London and his conquests, including young Joan Greenwood at her loveliest – their scenes in the rain are very lyrical. It is cleverly done with Clement shooting on the streets of London (with mostly hidden cameras) 5 years before the New Wave were doing the same in Paris. The fillm exists in French and English versions and it was great seeing it again at the BFI on the big screen a few years ago.

Philipe is mesermising with those soulful eyes magnified on the large screen –  He is one of the LA RONDE merry-go-round in Ophuls 1950 classic. I still have several others of his lined up to watch in that 'pending pile': THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA, LE ROUGE ET LE NOIR, BELLES DE NUIT, POT BOULLE.

LES AMANTS DE MONTPARNASSE is a standard biopic from 1957 about painter Modigliani starving in a garret in Paris, Philipe is just right here with Anouk Aimee and Lilli Palmer as his contrasting lovers ...

In all he clocked up 35 credits, according to IMDB - so he crammed a lot into those 36 years!. Vadim's 1959 LES LAISIONS DANGEROUSES with Jeanne Moreau sees him in a last main leading role - I have already reviewed it here - Philipe, Moreau labels. His final film, FEVER MOUNTS AT EL PAO, a Mexican oddity by Luis Bunuel is now available on dvd and blu-ray. We will continue enjoying seeing Gerard Philipe on screen ...

The 1959 "Who's Who in Hollywood" says: "GERARD PHILIPE of Rouge et Noir and Lovers of Paris is to French audiences what Bill Holden, Tab Hunter and Cary Grant are to Americans (or Dirk Bogarde to the British). And "art house" devotees here are pretty gone on him too. A leading star of the French theatre Gerard was recently in this country with the Theatre National Populaire, as actor-director. The dark-haired, boyish-looking charmer started his career at 19 and has been happily married for several years". 

Fabiola, 1949

Sticking with vintage epics & peplums (see the 1925 BEN-HUR below), the 1949 Italian FABIOLA may well be the first of those costumers that became so popular in the 1950s and early 60s. It is a gleaming black and white production, directed by Alessandro Blasetti, starring the French husband and wife team of Henri Vidal and Michele Morgan. He is the gladiator ambitious to get ahead, and she is Fabiola, popular with the people - the daughter of a senator who is murdered early on. The film does start to drag half way, with too much dialogue, but once we get to the gladiators and the arena with those wild animals on the loose, it certainly livens up.

In ancient Rome a love story blossoms between Fabiola, daughter of a senator, and Rhual, a gallic gladiator. When Fabiola's father is killed, the Romans blame the Christians and the persecution begins. Rhual confesses to be a christian and is accused of the murder and sentenced to fight to death in the arena.

Morgan (now in her 90s) is an alluring presence, but the hunky Vidal (more on him at label) died young - aged 40 in 1959. The large cast also includes Michel Simon, Franco Interlenghi , Rina Morelli, Paola Stoppa and Massimo Girotti as the martyr St Sebastian. Its certainly worth a look if your taste runs to sword-and-sandal stuff set in ancient Rome with Christians in peril and Roman mobs lusting for their gruesome entertainments. Its almost as much fun as QUO VADIS,

Peplum guys and gals, and costume dramas ...

Pompeii erupts again, Sophia and Robert and Napoleon, Belinda and that DANGEROUS EXILE ...

We like a good volcanic eruption here at the Projector, and the 1951 French film (thanks, Mel) SINS OF POMPEII has a rather good one, even if in black and white.

The muddled story features an Egyptian sect (bet you didn't know the Ancient Egyptians had also settled in Pompeii ....), a lady Helene - Micheline Presle - and a slave - Georges Marchal - amid a tangle of plots as the volanco finally blows the big one. 
Cue the usual mayhem with people trying to escape, fortunately our leading couple manage to get away in a boat, though its very unlikely anybody did back in 79 AD ! 

If only they had splashed out on colour and a more streamlined story. At least the statues in this peplum have the requisite nude look, unlike those tastefully covered ones in a Hollywood peplum like 1956's ALEXANDER THE GREAT ! Now for the Steeve Reeves version of POMPEII ... not to mention that new Paul W A Anderson 2014 feature. Best of all for me though is Robert Harris's novel, yes, titled "Pompeii" which Roman Polanski had been associated with a film of, pity that never came to pass ...

Unseen since 1961 is the French comedy MADAME SANS-GENE, a Christian Jacque romp (he also gave us Gerard Philipe's FANFAN LE TULIPE among others), with Sophia Loren at the height of her early 60s popularity (after TWO WOMEN, EL CID) as the French washerwoman following Napoleon's army, and washing the great man's shirts. 
She falls for Robert Hossein, one of his generals and the amusing story follows their ups and downs as they go in the world as the Duke and Duchess of Zanzig, with Sophia clowning as she learns to how conduct herself at court. Hossein also went on to have a neat line in tough thrillers which he often directed, as per Hossein/ French labels. MADAME is an amusing trifle now, which Loren turned out between more important engagements.

DANGEROUS EXILE - good to see this costume drama from 1957 available again on a proper dvd. Britian's Rank Organisation knew how to make movies like this, I enjoyed it as a kid, and still do now, featuring as it does that British siren Belinda Lee, unfortunately killed in a car crash in 1961, she could have gone on to have had a long career, in both European cinema (she is in the French New Wave LES DRAGUEURS in 1959, Italy's THE LONG NIGHT OF '43 (where her ordinary Italian woman is the equal of a Loren or Mangano), and various peplums like MESSALINA and APHRODITE, as well as sensational fare like SHE WALKS BY NIGHT - as per Belinda label. 

This is what I said about it a while back here:

DANGEROUS EXILE. One of those rather good Rank Organisation period adventures this 1957 drama features the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who is smuggeled out of the Basteille and escapes by hot air balloon but lands on a small island near Wales. The little prince (young Richard O'Sullivan) is found and protected by local beauty Belinda Lee and her aunt dowager Martita Hunt - there are however treacherous servants (Anne Heywood, Finlay Currie), the French in pursuit (Keith Michell) and French aristocrat Louis Jourdan also wants the boy, whom he replaces with his own son. Its stirring stuff well handled by veteran Brian Desmond Hurst and I liked it a lot as a kid, so good to see it again. One of Belinda's best for Rank. There is a poignant moment when her character says that when she is an old woman she can tell her grand-children the King of France wanted to marry her - Belinda though did not make old age, she was killed in a car accident when only 26. She had though become one of the sword and sandal stars on the continent. This is an engrossing period story about what may have happened to the young French prince Louis VXII. Lots of swashes are buckled. 

Peplum guys:

Vidal and Loren in ATTILA

Vidal & Belmondo

French actor Henri Vidal, married to Michele Morgan - posted about here before, as per label - in Rene Clement's LES MAUDITS, FABIOLA, with young Loren in the '54 peplum ATTILA where Anthony Quinn rampages across the ancient world. We liked Henri in some Hossein thrillers (like WHAT PRICE MURDER or THE WICKED GO TO HELL), and with Bardot in their two films, and with Romy Schneider in a 1959 comedy, ANGEL ON EARTH, (the year he died aged 40), which also featured up and coming Jean Paul Belmondo - right. Ironic it was Vidal's last film as Belmondo's career was taking off ...

Peplum guys: Ed Fury, a 50s American muscle guy, went the peplum route to Europe in the early Sixties with those URSUS films, after bit parts in lots of USA items: he is one of the boys Jane Russell serenades in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (thanks to the enterprising Peplum site for identifying him), he is also one of the sailors in SOUTH PACIFIC (below, at right), and seemingly uncredited in Marilyn's BUS STOP, and is the guy introduced to Joan Crawford in FEMALE ON THE BEACH .... thats one we will have to return to. Here's Ed with Susan Hayward star of DEMETRIUS AND THE GLADIATORS in 1954, where presumably he was a gladiator, and with Richard Widmark in another Fox movie, HELL AND HIGH WATER ...

B-movie heaven (2)

Another selection of pulpy crime thrillers, routine actioners, and some odd Euro-thrillers, not quite Trash but satisfyingly enjoyable, with those French thriller genre tough guys Henri Vidal and Robert Hossein, as well as Sterling Hayden and Steve Cochran and that tough dame Ruth Roman. Enjoy ...

Ruth Roman

THREE SECRETS, 1950. A nifty melodrama, one of Robert Wise’s early films. A five-year-old boy is the sole survivor of a devastating plane crash in the mountains of California. When the newspapers reveal the boy was adopted and that the crash occurred on his birthday, three women begin to ponder if it's the son each gave up for adoption. 
As the three await news of his rescue at a mountain cabin, they recall incidents from five years earlier and why they were forced to give up their son. The women are top-billed Eleanor Parker, rather pallid here; Patricia Neal as incisive as ever, and Ruth Roman who makes the most impression. It is nicely worked out and keeps one involved. The men pale by comparison: Frank Lovejoy, Arthur Franz, Leif Erickson, Ted de Corsia.

FIVE STEPS TO DANGER, 1957. While driving from California to New Mexico, Ann Nicholson picks up John Emmett at a truck stop. She is looking for someone else to share the driving with her so that she can get to her ultimate destination, Santa Fe, quicker. He agrees to accompany her, he being on a month long vacation and heading to a fishing lodge by bus in that general direction anyway. He soon begins to wonder if it was a good decision. They are first stopped by a nurse claiming that Ann is under medical psychological care, and then by the police who are looking for her for questioning on a serious incident back in Los Angeles. Because of these encounters, she tells him her story: that she is indeed recovering from a stress related condition, but that that stress was brought about by her need to get some politically sensitive military information to Santa Fe. 
Wavering between believing and not believing her story, John decides to trust her and go along with her as far as the story plays itself out, all the while the two being chased by various people. 
This plays marvellously with non-stop action ... it may even have inspired the look of PSYCHO ? - I was reminded of the scenes with Janet Leigh in the car and evading the policeman, while watching similar scenes here as we travel the highways and those cheap motels. Ruth Roman and Sterling Hayden are just right, and the plot teases until the end, as directed by Henry S. Kesler. 

TANGANYIKA, 1954. Movies with exotic names were a staple of 50s cinema, as programmers and actioners were set in places like TANGANYIKA, MARACAIBO, MOZAMBIQUE, EAST (or WEST) OF SUDAN - mostly filmed on the backlot, with second unit photography from Africa fitted in, as in Fox's WHITE WITCH DOCTOR (Susan Hayward label). Janet Leigh in her memoirs said they really went to Africa for SAFARI, a 1956 actioner with Victor Mature I remember seeing as a kid. It was hardly worth the journey. Here we have Ruth Roman again, with Van Heflin and Howard Duff, and lots of local colour with all those dancing and fighting natives in this obscure jungle adventure, directed by veteran Andre De Toth, he of the one eye. Roman comes across as a butcher Susan Hayward, Fox's regular action lady.

In 1903 Kenya, tough colonist John Gale is leading a safari to bring in escaped murderer Abel McCracken, who is stirring up the Nukumbi tribe and endangering Gale's holdings. En route, he picks up four survivors of Nukumbi raids: hunter Dan Harder, former teacher Peggy, and two kids. But Dan has hidden motives for coming along; and the Nukumbi are lying in wait.

One I must try to get hold of is JOE MACBETH, a '50s mobster version of Shakespeare with Paul Douglas and Ruth as a rather good Lady Macbeth, which I remember from seeing as a kid ... Ruth was later a staple on tv shows and is always - like Anne Baxter, Jane Russell, Dorothy Malone, Virginia Mayo, Martha Hyer, Vera Miles and other '50s gals - good value. Perhaps she is best remembered now in Hitch's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, 1951. We like her in the 1966 LOVE HAS MANY FACES which she practically steals from Lana Turner and those Acapulco beachboy gigolos. (Roman label).

MOZAMBIQUE, 1965. This routine, cheesy in a fun way, meller turned out to be the last film of tough guy Steve Cochran, who died that year. He looks fine here and does a lot of stunts in this Harry Alan Towers German production. An out-of-work and penniless American pilot is offered work in Mozambique and promptly becomes an unwitting pawn in a world of drug smuggling, kidnap and murder. Hildegarde Knef is rather good as Ilona Valdez, international woman of mystery (below) and chanteuse in a nightlcub, where she sings German songs to the African natives. Paul Hubschmid and vivacious Vivi Bach are also involved in the derring-do, its rather like a straight version of those Jean Dujardin OSS 117 send-ups. The definition of an amusing timewaster. Cochran was good too with Anne Baxter in CARNIVAL STORY in '54 and was immortalised by Antonioni as the lead in his IL GRIDO in 1957. (review at Antonioni label).

UNE MANCHE ET LA BELLE (WHAT PRICE MURDER?), 1957. A delicious treat from French thriller veteran Henri Verneuil (see French label for reviews of MELODIE EN SOUS SOL, etc). Humble (or is he?) bank clerk Henri Vidal charms wealthy widow Isa Miranda but keeps her at arms length until she practically begs him to marry her .... her secretary is young Mylene Demongeot, whom Vidal is attracted to, but Mylene has her own plans. So who ends up killing who? and will Isa suspect what is going on ? This is brilliantly worked out, with a great twist one does not see coming, from a James Hadley Chase potboiler, and it all looks great in gleaming black and white. Isa has a great role, Mylene is as delicious as ever, and Vidal - this charming man - looks great. 
We like Vidal - from ATTILA in '54, and Clement's LES MAUDITS, as well as those films with Brigitte Bardot and Romy Schneider (Vidal label). What a contrast with Robert Hossein, that other tough French guy. Vidal died aged 40 in 1959 just as Delon and Belmondo were hitting their stride - (so also did Gerard Philipe, also dying in 1959). Hossein on the other hand, is stll here in his 80s and still working unitl recently after a long career. Delon and Belmondo and Trintignant may have been the main French idols, but Maurice Ronet, Jean Sorel and Robert Hossein had long careers too, in mainly action movies - like Franco Nero, Raf Vallone, Renato Salvatori, Vittoria Gassman in Italy. Isa Miranda,below.

TOI ... LE VENIN, (NIGHT IS NOT FOR SLEEP), 1958. This is a deliciously crazy movie, with a great premise. Robert Hossein is out walking late at night when a car pulls up and a blonde calls him over. She wants him to get in, he does and soon they are locked in an embrace, after she removes her top .... but she throws him out and tries to run him over. He manages to get the car number and traces it to a villa where two wealthy sisters live. One is crippled in a wheelchair, and is nursed by her sister. These are played by real-life sisters Marina Vlady (Hossein's wife at the time) and Odile Versois. Our laidback hero is soon caught in the middle between the two sisters, as he romances Odile and promises to stay and run their record store. 

The other sister in the wheelchair is also becoming dangerously obsessed with Robert, but he begins to suspect she is not disabled at all, but cannot prove it. How is all this going to end? Very satisfyingly is all I can say. We liked some other Hossein thrillers (as per my previous B-movie post on French thrillers), like LE MONT CHARGE, and THE WICKED GO TO HELL, which featured Vidal and Vlady. This one is just as good if not better. IMDb describes it as a "Panting psychological thriller", ably directed by Hossein.

DEATH OF A KILLER, (LA MORT  D'UN TUEUR) 1964. Not much fun here but this is the real deal - a tough, spare, tense thriller with Hossein (forever in his pork pie hat) released from prison and teaming up with his old gang, to find out who shopped him to the police just as they were carrying out a robbery. He suspects one gang member, Luciano who was in love with Hossein's attractive sister Marie-France Pisier, whom Hossein himself is also obsessed about. Mother back at home is weary Lila Kedrova, as Hossein and his pals begin to track down Luciano all over the city (it looks like Marseilles). 
Local gangland gets involved and there is a detour to a nightclub with some exotic black dancers (as in LA NOTTE and other chic nightclub scenes of the time) where Hossein gets off with a blonde (also Pisier). Then the shoot-out and all is revealed at the end. Its a film of great images and creates a great mood of fatalism, again also directed by Hossein. 

Soon: Hossein with Sophia Loren in MADAME, that rarity from 1961 ... and another look at Dassin's classic RIFIFI with Hossein and a great cast; and another steaming helping of Trash classics.