Any Number Can Win (1963)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Charles (Jean Gabin), a criminal fresh out of jail, rejects his wife's plan for a quiet life of bourgeois respectability. He enlists a former cellmate, Francis (Alain Delon), to assist him in pulling off one final score, a carefully planned assault on the vault of a Cannes casino. Bad luck and lack of professionalism set the caper maddeningly askew.
- Actors:
- Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Claude Cerval, Viviane Romance, Henri Virlojeux, Jean Carmet, José Luis de Vilallonga, Rita Cadillac, Jimmy Davis, Dominique Davray, Dora Doll, Germaine Montero, Maurice Biraud, Carla Marlier, Marc Arian, Henri Attal, Jacques Bertrand, Georges Billy, Charles Bouillaud, Christian Brocard
- Directors:
- Henri Verneuil
- Producers:
- Jacques Bar, Jacques Juranville
- Writers:
- Michel Audiard, Albert Simonin, Zekial Marko
- Aka:
- Mélodie en sous-sol
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
- Countries:
- France
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Reviews (1) of Any Number Can Win
Tension Through the Roof - Any Number Can Win review by griggs
Verneuil’s caper understands something most heist films overlook: the waiting is the good bit. The first hour of Any Number Can Win is almost all setup — casino mechanics, Cannes seafront rhythms, Michel Audiard’s dialogue crackling like a lit fuse — and it’s glorious. Gabin radiates granite-still competence; Delon, all leather jacket and restless appetite, is the perfect counterpoint. They create friction just by standing next to each other.
The heist itself is a near-wordless beauty that can stand proudly alongside Rififi, while Louis Page’s black-and-white cinematography moves from Riviera glamour to backstage claustrophobia with terrific control. And the ending is one of cinema’s great punchlines — best left unspoiled.
If Francis’s romantic subplot with Carla Marlier’s dancer feels more like story machinery than a living relationship, that’s the one point where Audiard’s sharpness briefly slips. Still, it’s a small complaint in a film this sleek and self-assured.