Le Doulos (1962)
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
French director Melville did for gangsters exactly what the Italian Sergio Leone did for cowboys, creating a distinctively European take on a predominantly American form by focusing on details of props and costume in hyper-realist manner, spinning familiar B-plotlines into fable-like miniature epics of betrayal and revenge, and stressing brutally professional violence to an almost existential degree (albeit with a distancing Gallic shrug rather than Italianate close-up leering). In Le Doulos - slang for accuser, as in police informant, but also vengeance-seeker - Jean-Paul Belmondo is the underworld icon in fedora and collar-upturned trenchcoat, donning white editor's gloves whenever he shoots anyone and, in an astonishing sequence, tying a woman to a radiator to batter information out of her. His middleman, Silien, is presented as the rat who squealed on jewel thief Maurice (Serge Reggiani), but, of course, things are far from being that simple. Read Review ›