The Wise Guys

Having served eleven years in prison as a convicted murderer and narrowly escaping the clutches of Madame la Guillotine, Joseph Damiani who became José Giovanni, could hardly be called a jackpot of admirable character traits. Once his novel 'Le Trou', based upon his own attempted escape from prison was taken up by Jacques Becker, he never looked back which just goes to prove that crime does pay. Naturally he himself asserted that he had 'paid his debt to society'.

His lurid background and intimate knowledge of the criminal mentality certainly gave an edge and a sense of realism to his writings which proved irresistible to directors and provided meaty roles for some of France's most iconic actors. Here he has adapted his own 'Haut-fer'.

Director Robert Enrico has again secured the expensive services of Lino Ventura who teams up with equally expensive Bourvil and they complement each other very well in their sole outing together. Ventura is entering his mature phase with his best roles yet to come and Bourvil again proves his abilities as a straight actor despite being known mainly for his rather infantile comedies.

Laurent, an ex-con played by Ventura, helps the Hector of Bourvil to run his failing sawmill by utilising a bunch of jailbirds on parole as lumberjacks. This is resented by a powerful local landowner and results in gang warfare. Moreover it seems that Laurent's motives for aiding Hector are not of the finest......

It is set in the Vosges region but with its subject matter and Morricone-like score by Francois de Roubaix, it could just as easily be transposed to the wild West where men were men and women were willing. As one would expect from Giovanni the men are decidedly men and the women seem willing enough, none more so than lovely Marie Dubois.

Plenty of testosterone-fuelled, mucho macho posturing here of course, notably from Jess Hahn as a Neanderthal nitwit whilst Michel Constantine supplies his customarily understated menace. Ventura is able to utilise his previous experience in the Ring to great effect in the frequent fisticuff fests that punctuate the film at regular intervals. He also gets to rival Jean Gabin in the sheer quantity of cigarettes he smokes.

For those who like this sort of thing there is a great deal here to enjoy but it fails alas to fulfil its early promise and is simply not substantial enough to justify its two hour length whilst Giovanni's themes are better suited to a more enclosed underworld setting. Great conflagration scene however and an effective downbeat ending.

We should be grateful for small mercies in that this film was not directed by Giovanni himself.

Les Grandes Gueules benefits from Robert Enrico's gusto for location shooting plus José Giovanni's talent for describing brawny he-male relationships. Thus the setup is great with those great French actors Bourvil and Lino Ventura. Then the supporting cast is pretty soon rounded up to strengthen the atmosphere but from there the movie is freewheeling, dragging its footage between subplots: the competition with the "monopolistic" sawmill, the tension at home between the tough guys, a touch of MacGuffin suspense and the vaguely romantic subplots.

What's enjoyable is the atmosphere of male camaraderie and the Vosges forest setting but there's not enough in the plot for the movie to last over 2 hours. What is more Lino Ventura has always been at a loss when it comes to playing a romantically involved character, let alone driving sexual chemistry. All in all an immature movie playing with its toys and friends until toys and friends are gone.

The two main actors in this film, Lino Ventura and Bourvil could indeed lead the prospective viewer to actually believe he/she was in for something exciting. Erreur !! I'm sorry to say, at over 2 hours this really was one of the most laborious and soporific adventure films I have seen. Even the beauty of of the Vosges mountains and the lovely face of Marie Dubois can't save the day. The main problem is the plot, which is hopelessly limited. Bourvil returns to the Vosges mountains, in Eastern France to take over the sawmill run by his late father. One of the locals want's to buy out the said sawmill but Bourvil holds out on his own ( he's not a Norman for nothing !!! ). But he needs workers. Enter Lino Ventura and a friend, recently out of prison and looking for work. They get taken on by Bourvil and get other prisoners on parole to work there. This is not just kindess on the part of Ventura, he hopes to get one of his deadly enemies from prison to work there so that he can exact revenge and kill him.

The blessed chap in question never actually turns up, we don't know why and Ventura never accomplishes his project. Bourvil ends up setting fire to the saw mill and throwing in the towel. This totally uninteresting little plot wastes 2 hours of your time and you really wonder where the scriptwriter was intending to go with all that. It's really a shame such great actors/actresses wasting their time on a corny plot like this.

Picture quality is passable for mid sixties but I found the colors to be rather washed out and over whitish. Rather a shame when you know that the area in question ( I've been there myself and can vouch for its scenic beauty ) is so beautiful.

After about 30 minutes of watching this film you begin to realize that the whole this is starting to s...a....g !! At the end, it just fizzles out and you wonder why you wasted two hours of your time on it. This is one I CERTAINLY won't have the courage to watch a second time !!

This is a typical excellent french movie with two of the best french actors : lino ventura and bourvil. The story is good, the acting is perfect and the atmosphere of the film is very pleasant; My advice : one of the best french adventure movies

A strange film. Riddled with clumsiness: fight scenes with punches missing by a mile and ridiculuous Foley work using interior echo for outdoor action; people working as lumberjacks wearing clean shirts at the end of the day, etc. etc.

Funny too that the actor Bourvil, best known as a comedian, comes across as

slightly mean, taciturn and unpleasant in a role obviously written to be warm- hearted. An aging Lino Ventura is frankly embarrassing as the romantic lead,

and his lazy gambit of instilling drama by lighting up yet another Gauloise or Gitane (count 'em!) should have been jumped on and stubbed out by the

director. The plot seems to borrow hugely from American films, and there is little local flavour. The bizarre highlight is the gang of convicts letting their hair down on a fairground carousel, gaily tossing confetti at each other, followed by the dramatic denouement when one of the convicts refuses to let a rival have a turn on a fairground game! Zut alors!