This was the first notable film from Jean-Pierre Melville, a director who would establish
himself as the master of the French crime thriller genre in the 1950s and 1960s... [More...]
Jean Cocteau’s provocative 1929 novel enjoyed a difficult transition to the silver screen,
and even when this feat was accomplished the film was widely condemned for its allusions
to incest... [More...]
Whilst lacking the sombre hard-edged impact of some of Melville’s latter gangster films,
Bob le flambeur is an impressive early outing for the director in his most successful
genre... [More...]
Jean-Pierre Melville was the French director who was most successful in transposing the
American film noir genre to European cinema, and Deux hommes dans Manhattan is
the film which shows its American roots most clearly... [More...]
In this film, which won the Grand Prix de Venice in 1961, Jean-Pierre Melville paints
a fascinating study of a woman who is disturbed, both sexually and morally... [More...]
Le Doulos is a sophisticated policier which shows its roots in classic film noir
throughout. The American gangster movies of the 1930s and 1940s had a great appeal
to director Jean-Paul Melville and in this film he creates... [More...]
The familiar Jean-Pierre Melville themes of honour, loyalty and redemption underpin this hard-edged
policier which sees the formidable pairing of Lino Ventura and Paul Meurisse... [More...]
That Le Samouri should be widely regarded as a classic policier is mainly down
to three ingredients: Delon, Melville and Decae, a recipe that can hardly fail to please.
Alain Delon is brilliantly
cast as the solitary... [More...]
In this film, director Jean-Pierre Melville draws on his own war-time experiences to paint
a vivid and realistic picture of life in the French Resistance during the Second World
War... [More...]
Jean-Pierre Melville’s penultimate film is an unashamed, no holds barred homage to the
American film noir detective thriller of the 1940s. Despite the simplicity
of its plot and the characteristic minimalism of... [More...]
For his final film, Jean-Pierre Melville returns to the genre in which he excelled, the policier. Un flic
comes from the same mould as his earlier masterpieces... [More...]
