Le Doulos

How I would've loved to see this movie on the big-screen; as it is, one of the only set-backs in watching it is that the current Kino VHS copy is of poor quality, with the kind of subtitles you can't read when it's with a white background, and the aspect ratio is off at times. But it is a kind of "lost" classic in some ways, harder to find than Jean-Pierre Melville's films on Criterion DVD (Le Cercle Rouge, Bob le Flabeur, and Le Samourai), but still as rich in his own style than with his other films. If at times it might not seem as much Melville as usual, it may be because it's based off a book by Pierre Lesou. But Melville still instills his distinctive flair at making old-fashioned crime stories involving criminals with codes of honor, police with some level of respect and intelligence, and a perfection of dead-pan dialog and silences.

The film also includes a star of the times- Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Silien, a sort of smooth operator of underdog criminals, who is friends with Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani, a man with soul in his face if that makes sense). Faugel, at the start of the film, does something that may or may not have been the right thing, but he still has to hide it, in the midst of gearing up for a heist (again, this IS Melville). The heist doesn't go as planned. There's also been another murder, which Silien cannot stand, even as he is placed in the realm of a police investigation. I hesitate to describe much else of the story; on a first viewing one may think there is too much exposition at times (in particular when Silien reveals some of the details later in the film to Faugel, with fades to flashbacks and so forth), and the double-crossings that occur make the story very twisty, in the perfunctory crime-novel sense of course. In some ways it's a little more novelistic in the storytelling than a film like Le Cercle Rouge.

The style of Le Doulos is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and senses. It isn't always fast and it isn't always slow, but when Melville wants a level of suspense he somehow brings it. Like all his other crime films, he's working in a framework akin to the American genre pictures of the late 30's and 40's- tough guys almost always shielding their emotions, kind to most women but not all (there's an interrogation scene by Silien with a woman that is effective, and rather disturbing in just the set-up of the woman), and a kind of fate that is and isn't expected with the characters. One might even try and make naturalistic comparisons with the story; Faugel with his own problems, Silien with his lonely but loyal life to his few friends, the police's professionalism.

But what really catches me with Le Doulos, like the best moments in Melville's films, is how he subverts the kind of expectations of the classic style of the 40's American crime films - dark shadows in the background coming into the foreground, creeping in on the characters, and usually basic camera moments - with the 'new-wave' sensibilities. There are certain shots that are stunning, some of which elude me even after seeing the film three times. The Silien scene I mentioned is one, but also note the hand-held use as the robbers run away from the cops after the heist; the extraordinary long-take in the police investigation (you almost forget that there isn't a cut); the occasionally very unusual angles put onto characters to add a certain 'kick' to the feeling behind it.

Despite the straightforward attitude of the characters, there is emotion behind the style. Many have said Melville's films are 'cool', very 'cool', or sometimes too 'cold' for their own good. Both could be attributed. But the coolness outranks everything else; Belmondo, by the way, is so cool in this film, so unflinchingly so at times (even if in sometimes a little ineffectual), it makes his performance in Breathless seem amateurish. Coincidentally, he is more like the Bogart character here than in Godard's film. Reggiani, too, gives an excellent supporting performance, usually without having to say anything. The climax of the film, where the characters come to a head in the 'Halo', is like the icing on the cake of the film.

Jean-Pierre Melville's direction is a glorious tribute to classic American crime films of the 1940's and early 50's but has also a strong touch of originality. The story is set in the early 1960's Paris, but these criminals seem to live in a world of their own. It's a Hollywood film-noir underworld, where men constantly wear hats and trench coats like Humbrey Bogart, brandishing revolvers, drinking bourbon or scotch and driving big American cars, that look like tanks compared to small ordinary European vehicles around. The overall mood is dark and threatening and with the right kind of lightning and photography many scenes seem like epitomes of the best stuff the genre has ever offered.

Compared to its predecessors The Fingerman gives some new shine to the term 'hard boiled'. Women can still be fatal femmes in some sense, but mostly they get pushed around and are allowed attention only when men really need them. They are only there to pass information and sexual favors, nurse wounds and serve as minor helping hands. And when it comes to violence, they get the same rough treatment as any man.

Belmondo's role leans heavily to Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) in John Huston's adaption of 'The Asphalt Jungle', only with a more visible dark side. His character is a strange and hypnotic mixture of honesty, treachery and bursts of sadistic violence. The way his tone of voice changes to more tender just before assault or murder is gripping. Serge Reggiani, although equally capable to violence, seems more mature and easier to identify with. Both men strongly overpower the happenings but not their own destinies. Fate still has its usual final word, as anyone familiar with characteristics of the genre well knows.

The plot with several flashbacks and changes of time and place may feel a little complex at the beginning, but opens up to be a very rewarding movie experience towards the end. This film easily equals and even surpasses many of its obvious paragons. Of the few Melville's films I have seen at this point this one became an instant favorite in a single viewing even beating the almighty Le Samurai. Very warmly recommended.

Le Doulos is a very good gangster noir from Jean-Pierre Melville. Like his other crime films its American influenced but with French style. It's really a recreation of the American film-noir of the 40's in 60's Paris. As such it's very stylised. Despite the time period, all of the actors look, act and dress like characters out of a hard-boiled movie from the 1940's. Trench coats and hats are the order of the day despite not being in the least bit in fashion in the 60's. The actors were all instructed to perform in a very controlled stylistic way that mimicked those old movies. This was seemingly something that Jean-Paul Belmondo found very unsatisfying, not surprising from an actor famed for working with Jean-Luc Godard whose style was extremely loose and off-the-cuff by comparison.

Like noir, this one has a cast of characters where none are good in the traditional sense. It's about a thief who has just been released from prison. He immediately gets involved in criminal activity but is sold out to the police. He suspects his best friend is a police informer ('le doulos'). It's about betrayals, friendship and people assuming the worst of each other; the honour/dishonour of thieves. Of course, this being a noir, things do not run in a straightforward manner and there are several twists and turns before we reach the end. Look out also for an early cinematic nude scene featuring Fabienne Dali who also made a memorable appearance as a sexy witch in Mario Bava's Gothic horror film Kill, Baby…Kill!

Le Doulos is not as well-known as Melville's later colour pictures, but very much undeservedly so. Gangster films rarely manage to surprise their audience with the plot (unless they sacrifice logic as so often in Raymond Chandler's stories), but here we have an exception. This one is entirely logical and entirely surprising; an extraordinary gangster story of trust, betrayal and code of honour. It is impossible to correctly guess the outcome even when you are through 2/3 of the film.

Highly recommended.

Another tale of dishonor among thieves and another masterpiece from Jean- Pierre Melville but this one's a little more complicated than most. "Le Doulos" is slang for a hat but in criminal circles it also means a police informer. The informer here is Jean-Paul Belmondo and he seems to be playing one side against the other, police and crooks, but to what end? The movie is tortuously plotted until it's all very neatly and beautifully tied up at the end and it pays homage, not just to the great Hollywood gangster movies, but to such classically poetic French films of the thirties such as "Le Jour se Leve" and "Les Quai Des Brumes". Belmondo is, of course, magnificent and SergeReggiani is suitably fatalistic as the gangster who sets everything in motion. An absolutely essential movie.