Jean Paul Belmondo is a washed up boxer who manages to get himself hired as a secretary/bodyguard to a businessman. Charles Vanel plays the businessman on the run from the police in France as they investigate his shady background. Eventually Belmondo and Vanel end up in the United States with a suitcase full of money where they are followed by the FBI.
The director is Jean-Pierre Melville an expert on these types of crime films. Here he seems to come up a little flat in his film making for some reason. The Belmondo and Vanel really have to work hard to maintain any interest in the story. The film has some nice color photography of the United States in the early 60's courtesy of Henri Decaë. Melville is fairly good at creating a believable situation of 2 Frenchman who are a couple of fish out of water hiding from the authorities in the southern part of the United States, particularly New Orleans.
However I would say this is one Melville's lesser films and certainly not up there with his later films such as
Le Samouraï and
Le Cercle Rouge. The weakness of the film is due to the weakness in the screenplay which can't seem to make their situation very compelling.
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville, the running time is 102 minutes.
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