CARTOUCHE (1962)

Two years and two films before THAT MAN IN RIO turned Phillipe de Broca’s partnership with actor Jean-Paul Belmondo into big international box-office, this period piece, a pre-French Revolution swashbuckler (very Robin Hood/Merry Men) got things going.  And if the chintzy production now looks overdressed and joie de vivre a bit forced, structure, pacey reversals of fortune and character shading keep it taut between action & crises.  Based on a real person (Louis-Dominique Bourguignon), Cartouche, as he calls himself, moves upwards from Bandit to Bandit King to Bandit King-with-a-purpose once he usurps power from the venal Marcel Dalio, and gets his fellow cut-pursers to pledge their loyalty.  Now if he can only keep away from the Aristos out for his blood.  All this complicated by his two loves: a passion for the elegant Odile Versois, wife of his main pursuer; and his shared bond with beautiful fellow crook Claudia Cardinale.  With Jess Hahn & a marvelous Jean Rochefort as his top aides, they raid estates and loot at will, crashing parties to steal jewels & plate between gavottes.  (We never do see much sharing with the poor.)  But when a love assignation turns into a trap, even a last-minute save will bring no more than temporary reprieve.  Good fun, though a lack of technical dazzle and some repetitive staging works against the film.  At this stage, neither de Broca nor French studios a match for Michael Curtiz working with Errol Flynn in TechniColor at Warners in the late ‘30s.  The leap forward on RIO by de Broca & Belmondo considerable.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  Decades after this kind of thing went hopelessly out of fashion, de Broca showed how it still could be done, topping his own work late in his career with yet another version of LE BOSSU/’97.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/le-bossuon-guard-1997.html   OR: As mentioned: THAT MAN IN RIO.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/04/lhomme-de-rio-that-man-from-rio-1964.html