Movie Review: Le Cercle Rouge, starring Alain Delon and Yves Montand, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (1970)

Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1970 heist movie Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle) is often described as a masterpiece of French crime cinema. Le Cercle Rouge stars Alain Delon, Yves Montand, Gian Maria Volonte, and Andre Bourvil. I’m a big fan of Melville’s previous film with Delon, the stylish 1967 movie Le Samourai, so I had high expectations for Le Cercle Rouge, but I just didn’t enjoy it as much as Le Samourai.   

In Le Samourai, every aspect of the production, from the sets to the costumes, was stylishly designed and seemed to be the product of a singular artistic vision and imagination. Le Cercle Rouge, in contrast, felt more run of the mill and less individual. Maybe that was a deliberate choice that Melville made, but it made Le Cercle Rouge less interesting to watch. Both movies are not really about the plot and the story, so when the artistic and design choices are uninteresting, like in Le Cercle Rouge, there’s not much to hang onto.  

This lack of stylishness can be exemplified by the cars the characters drive in Le Cercle Rouge. Delon buys a nondescript black Plymouth Fury III sedan. Yves Montand drives a green Mercury station wagon with fake wood paneling on the side. Maybe this was cool and ironic for French audiences at the time to see these French film icons driving big American cars, but for me I just see how totally boring those cars were, even in 1970. Speaking of the car scenes, the scenes with Delon, Montand, and Volonte in the car were all done with rear projection, rather than real driving, which was disappointing.  

There are no significant female roles, and I’m not even sure if there are any females who have speaking roles in Le Cercle Rouge. It’s a man’s world, to paraphrase James Brown. But look for Delon’s girlfriend Mireille Darc in a non-speaking role as the woman who gives him a flower.  

While I enjoy Melville’s visual style, I found the numerous wipe edits in the second half of the movie distracting. They also struck me as surprisingly amateurish, given Melville’s status as a veteran filmmaker.  

Italian actor Gian Maria Volonte, notable for his many roles in Spaghetti Westerns, plays a character who is sort of a double of Delon’s character. The theme of a character doubling for another is a frequent theme in Delon’s movies: Plein Soleil, La Piscine, Mr. Klein, and Spirits of the Dead, to name a few. I thought Volonte delivered an excellent performance, but Melville did not like working with Volonte.  

From the 1971 book Melville on Melville, excerpted in the Criterion Collection liner notes, Melville had this to say about Volonte: “He never at any moment made me feel I was dealing with a professional. He didn’t know how to place himself for the lighting...I can tell you, I won’t be making any more films with Gian Maria Volonte.” Ouch. Volonte had been a film actor for 10 years and made more than 25 movies by 1970, so Melville’s characterization of him as unprofessional seems surprising to me.  

Delon plays a man just getting out of prison, which was almost a cliche for him at this point in his career. Suffice it to say, he is not able to stay on the straight and narrow path. He encounters Volonte’s character when he stows away in the trunk of Delon’s car. Volonte is on the run, having escaped from the custody of police inspector Bourvil. Delon and Volonte quickly team up, and Volonte introduces Delon to Montand’s character, an ex-police officer and a crack shot who they will need for the heist they are planning.  

The supporting actors all give superb performances. Francois Perier, who played the obsessed police detective in Le Samourai, is here as a nightclub owner. Andre Bourvil, often known as simply Bourvil, was best known for his comedic performances and for his singing, but here he gives an excellent performance as the methodical police inspector. Sadly, it was one of Bourvil’s final performances, as he died from multiple myeloma just a month before the release of Le Cercle Rouge. Bourvil’s performance was probably my favorite in the movie. 

Le Cercle Rouge is most famous for the long heist sequence at the end of the movie. It’s a dialogue-less sequence that unspools in basically real time, and it accounts for about 30 minutes of the film’s 140-minute running time. It’s a triumph of technical filmmaking, to be sure. And that’s exactly the problem with the heist sequence. Because the three actors, Delon, Volonte, and Montand, are all masked for the whole sequence, there’s no opportunity for them to do any acting. There are hardly even any close ups where they have to act with their eyes. The sequence thus becomes stripped of any human engagement, and instead of being thrilling and tense, it becomes a fetishization of the process, the procedure. This fits with the whole masculine vibe of Le Cercle Rouge: things happen; the plot progresses, but emotion is left out of the equation.  

I’m glad I watched Le Cercle Rouge, it’s still an interesting film, especially for anyone interested in French cinema, but ultimately it left me feeling slightly empty, much like one of Melville’s protagonists.  

Meeting Miss Scarlet

My favorite movie of all-time is the 1985 classic Clue. I’ve seen it more times than I can count, and it’s been my favorite movie since I was a kid. Watching and re-watching it on VHS was a core childhood memory. When the opportunity came to see the movie and meet Lesley Ann Warren, aka Miss Scarlet, I jumped at the chance.  

My wife and I met Lesley Ann Warren before the show. With meet and greet things, I feel like you never quite know what it’s going to be like. Do I get 30 seconds with the person, or 3 minutes? But this turned out to be quite a lovely experience. Lesley Ann Warren was just delightful, very nice and sweet. She’s still gorgeous, as you can imagine, with sparkling green eyes, set off by her sparkly green jacket and pants. We each got one item signed by her: I found a very cute 8x10 on eBay of Warren from her terrific role in Victor/Victoria. As she was signing it, I realized that I needed to say something to her, so she knew what a fan of the movie I am. I said what a fan of hers we both are, and especially of her performance as Miss Scarlet. 

I brought along my copy of the 1985 book Clue: The Storybook, which was a large hardcover that was meant for younger readers. As I opened the book for Warren to sign it, she said “What is this?” She had never seen the storybook before! As a devoted Clue nerd, I was very proud of myself. I explained that it was a version of the movie for younger readers, but without most of the jokes. Instead of Mr. Green being gay, he’s having “a sort of an affair.” Warren flipped through it, looking at some of the photos. When she came across a photo of Martin Mull, she said “Oh, there’s my dear sweet Martin.” And on seeing one photo of herself she said, “There’s the dress that looks like it’s always about to fall down but never did.” When we shook hands she said, “Your hands are so warm!”  

Warren was interviewed on stage before the movie. She said she’s working on a one-woman show, which sounds like it would be amazing. Warren really got along well with Martin Mull, and they had a marvelous time cracking each other up on the set. Because her costume was so tight, and because she was wearing a period-appropriate corset, it was difficult if not impossible for Warren to sit down, so she spent a lot of her off-camera time on a leaning board so she could relax but still keep her dress pristine. The costume designer also made a second dress that had a hidden zipper, so Warren could run from room to room with the rest of the cast.  

At the time Clue was released, it was not a box-office smash, and it seemed like it would be just another project that would fade away. But the growing VHS and home rental market, as well as frequent airings on cable TV, gave Clue a remarkable afterlife. Clue was famously released with three different endings—newspaper ads would indicate which theater was showing which ending. It was a gutsy choice for Paramount, and while they were no doubt hoping that audiences would come back and see all three endings, it’s a lot to ask of people to sit through the same 85 minutes of a movie before the last 5 minutes are different. The different endings were a wonderful homage to the board game, as there are 324 possible solutions to the game. That’s 9 times 6 times 6. Or 6 times 6 times 9. But while the multiple endings might have confused audiences in the theaters, on VHS the 3 endings were combined, so we saw them one after the other. This was the perfect way to experience Clue. Warren told the audience that years after Clue had been released, she asked Martin Mull, “Are you getting, like a LOT of fan mail about Clue?” Mull replied, “You too?”  

When I was a little kid watching Clue, obviously a standout performance was Tim Curry as Wadsworth the butler. (“I buttle, sir.”) But watching the movie so many times over the years has given me reasons to appreciate the entire cast’s performances. As Warren said, “We were not comedians, we were all comic actors.” Bingo. And that’s why it worked so well. No one was trying to steal laughs, and they were all good enough actors to make their roles believable. (Well, except for Lee Ving, who is terrible as Mr. Boddy.)  

As a little kid, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Miss Scarlet. I knew we were supposed to find her attractive—she’s a beautiful woman in a stunning dress, after all. But I wasn’t sure what to make of her brash, bold personality. So, I shied away from Miss Scarlet and instead developed a crush on Mrs. White, so exquisitely played by the wonderful Madeline Kahn. The fact that Mrs. White had perhaps killed several of her husbands seemed to have escaped me. (“Husbands should be like Kleenex: soft, strong, and disposable.”)  

Watching Clue as an adult, I’m more drawn to Miss Scarlet. And a large part of that is Warren’s outstanding performance. Miss Scarlet is never scared by the events of the evening; she takes it all in stride and keeps making snappy wisecracks throughout the proceedings. (“It’s my defense mechanism.”) Miss Scarlet is probably the character I’d most want to hang out with. It’s a great performance that just grows with multiple viewings.