Henri Verneuil’s ultra-glossy caper pic, well-liked, successful, probably best described as a Powerhouse Mediocrity for Jean Gabin, Alain Delon & Lino Ventura as two crooks & a cop. You can almost hear its producers salivating over commercial possibilities, shooting French, English & Italian versions to maximize international appeal. Not much deeply wrong here, it’s no disgrace like, say, THE TOWERING INFERNO/’74, merely a by-the-numbers jewel-heist suspenser with cop-killer Delon escaping from an unbreachable prison van after a court appearance so he can convince mob guy Gabin (et famille) to work one last grab before retiring to Sicily. And Detective Ventura time and again just missing his man before an inevitable, if inadvertent crack breaks the case open after Ventura’s step-by-step diligence fails. A handful of big set pieces build pretty well, though even these miss their potential, but a big twisty climax with the plane piloted by a bemused Sydney Chaplin for a New York landing is oddly suspense-free.* In spite of the film’s studied impersonal tone, three standout elements manage to hold interest: Ennio Morricone’s ‘Jew’s Harp’ heavy film score (for its Sicilian timbre?); Henri Dacaë’s impossibly smooth, grain-free lensing (giving a sort of imperial look); and the imposingly hideous late ‘60s style of its apartment interiors & public spaces: Red Naugahyde sofas, ‘Orange Crush’ colored pod chairs, Polka Dot patterned walls. It certainly keeps nostalgia at bay. Yikes!
DOOUBLE-BILL: *Almost as suspense-free as Delon’s last attempt at Hollywood stardom via THE CONCORD . . . AIRPORT ‘79.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Keep Delon & cinematographer Dacaë, add Yves Montand & director Jean-Pierre Melville, and see this sort of thing refashioned as existential High Art in LE CERCLE ROUGE/’70.
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