It can also be seen as a crime flick from the late forties, just a few years after the end of WW2. It evokes those who more or less participated to the release of Paris. The first part explores this angle in a very interesting way. And it also shows how people behaved in those periods, twisted, disturbed times for French people. How to succeed in life, how to survive, make money. Raymond Pellegrin is already awesome here, two decades before his peak in the French crime film genre. He was really a gifted actor. This movie is a sort of semi documentary of the hoodlum way of life, and also police routine, shown in a rather light hearted way, sometimes funny. Solid action scenes too. A pretty worth watching feature. And I am not usually fond of the forties French films.