If you wanted to construct the perfect image of a gangster you would end up with Lino Ventura. The stocky build, the chiselled features and the defiant stare. It is the eyes that give Ventura's character, the gangster on the run Abel Davos, the only hint of emotion. He kills with no hint of remorse, it's what gangsters do, but when he looks at his children there is a flicker of humanity.
Jean-Paul Belmondo, as Eric Stark, leaps from delighted young lover to aspiring hardened criminal with one swing of his left hook.
Sandro Milo plays Lillane with the right mixture of naivety and worldliness.
From the robbery in Milan to the blood in Paris this is a French gangster film par excellence.
Extremely well made and paced gangster film from the 50s which sweeps from Milan to Ventimiglia to Menton to Nice to Paris, yet the principal character is permanently trapped by his circumstance. His relationship with his boys gives the film a wonderful human warmth in the midst of the prevailing seedy viciousness. Very well worth seeing.
At this distance most of the pleasure comes from all the 50s French street scenes, cars and clothes.
Very watchable gangster-evading-the-law-while-dragging-his-2-children-with-him, movie.
A woman gets involved and you think its going to get all Noir by forcing a choice between the lady and the mission, but it doesnt.
The gangsters are never quite convincing (is it the typical of the era) and guns are used like toys. They also spend alot of time arguing about who owes favours to whom.
Dont hold your breathe for the denouement either.
But lots of retro fun nevertheless. I imagine when it was made , that would have just been.. lots of fun.