A lot of urban crime melodramas are IMO mislabeled "noirs." Jean-Pierre Melville's "Les Doulos" is the real thing: dark in look (deep black compositions), dark in vision (pessimistic with considerable brutality and betrayals within betrayals). I don't find it as compelling as Melville's "Le Samouraï" (1967 with Alain Delon in the title role), but prefer it to Melville's "Bob, la flambeur" (1956, with Roger Duchesne in the title role).

In French "doulos" means hat but also is used for a certain type under the hat: police informers. ("Snitch" seems to me the best equivalent in English.) The informer, who is playing a complex game of manipulations and murders for himself is Silien, played in trench coat and fedora by Jean-Paul Belmondo, who had played the title role the previous year in Melville's "Léon Morin, prêtre" (1961).

Belmondo received top billing, but I think that Maurice Faugel, the burglar played by Serge Reggiani (whose career had been languishing since his fine performance in Jacques Becker's period gangster movie "Casque d'or" in 1952) has more screen time, including being the one who is walking under railroad trestles during the opening credits.

Faugel is on the way to slay Gilbert Vanovre (René Lefèvre), who appears to be his protector who seems a generous mentor who is unmounting stolen gems from their settings while offering food and then cash to Faugel. Faugel slips out when a large (especially for France!) arrives with two gangster involved in the jewel burglary, leaving Fabienne (Fabienne Daly) in the back seat.

Faugel buries the gun, twice-stolen jewels, and a wad of money under a lamp-post. Most of the rest of the movie involve that gun, those jewels, and Faugel trying to figure out whether Silien betrayed him to Silien's policeman pal Salignari (Daniel Crohem) or not..

In a 2008 interview with Bertrand Tavernier (director of Coup de Torchon and other movies, who was publicity agent for the movie after a previous one outraged Belmondo), he says that Belmondo was distressed that Melville used his secretary and other nonactors in the female roles. Tavernier agrees with Belmondo they could not hold the screen with stars (Belmondo, Reggiani) and opines that Melville's interest was almost entirely in the relationships (very duplicitous ones) of the male characters.

The major ones are Thérèse (Monique Hennessy) who is living with Faugel and very cool to Salien and Fabienne, an ex of Salien's, now with nightclub owner Nuttheccio (Michel Piccoli), but not over Salien. Both women get involved in the plots hatched by the men. One is slapped around and eventually killed (I won't reveal which one though).

Informed of a burglary in progress, both Salien's police inspector friend and Faugel's partner are fatally shot. Faugel also takes a bullet, but is not down long (not even the hour for the IV drip the veterinarian who removes the bullet prescribes) before starting a hunt for Salien. The plot gets quite complicated, especially when Salien provides an alternative version of what happened.

A lot of the major characters end up dead. As in "Les enfants terribles," near the end there is a dramatically falling screen. There is also a notable pair of mirror scenes, one in a cracked mirror near the start with Faugel, one near the end with Salien straightening his hat. (Delon would do this a lot in "Le Samouraï," too.)

In another DVD bonus feature interview, director Volker Schlöndorff (The Young Törless, The Tin Drum), who was assistant director and de facto apprentice on "Les Doulos," notes that French men were not wearing hats when the movie was made. The fedoras and trench coats were a throwback to the 1930s and 40s Hollywood gangster movies (and 1950s Hollywood noirs) that Melville loved. The costumes were anachronistic. I think that it is Tavernier who says that French gangsters had no code of honor and were romanticized. Despicable characters can't b e tragic heroes, Tavernier correctly insists. Both Tavenier and Schlöndorff stress the artificiality of the world portrayed in "Les Doulos" and the Americanness of the gangster outfits and the film's sets and setting.

The Criterion DVD also includes a trailer, earnest if informative commentary on three scenes running over half an hour in total by Ginette Vincendeau, author of Jean-Pierre Melville: An American in Paris, the interviews with Tavernier (15:30) and Schlöndorff (13:18) and three television interviews with Melville Belmondo (4:26), Serge Reggiani (7:10) both from 1863 and Melville and Reggiani (3:15) from 1970.

Melville had a great, deep voice and a flamboyant persona, as well as a keen intelligence and considerable charm, so any footage of him talking about movies (his or those he admired, such as those of William Wyler, Robert Wise, and André de Toth) is always interesting and rewarding. Mme. Vincendeau is rather dry, but conveys a lot of insightful interpretations and information.

The remastered video the harsh black-and-gray cinematography by Nicolas Hayer (Le Corbeau, Orphée) has very deep, inky blacks. The optional English-language subtitles are clear, grammatical, and insofar as I could follow the French dialogue accurate. The dialogue is very tough-guy, starting with the epigram from Lois-Ferdinand Céline, "You have to die or lie." The movie shows that it is very easy in lives of crime (on either side of the law) to lie and die. Major characters tend to be killed off in Melville movies. Getting out alive is rare. As Salien observes, "in this business, you either end up a bum or full of lead."

And the cinematic story-telling is always more important than the story (the one here came from a novel by Pierre Lesou in the Gallimard Série Noire). Before Salien's retelling of much of the story, there is a single 8 minute take of a confrontation in the police station between Faugel and . For a long time into the movie there is no music, though eventually there is jazz in bars and clubs and on the radio.


© 2008, Stephen O. Murray

This review of a very black and white movie, very French existentialist movie is a contribution both to the Isinga memorial writeoff and the French find one.

I wanted to post reviews of two related new Criterion releases ("Classe tous risques" with Belmonodo and "Le deuxième souffle"directed by Melville, but could not. They are posted on Associated Content.

www.associatedcontent.com/article/1199879
/a_late_great_french_noir_starring_lino.html?cat=40

www.associatedcontent.com/article/1170668
/jeanpierre_melvilles_1966_crime_and.html?cat=40

(Eps has forced me to insert a line break in each URL that should be removed in pasting them)

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD