Movie Review: The Sicilian Clan, starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, and Lino Ventura (1969)

The three stars of The Sicilian Clan: Alain Delon, Jean Gabin, and Lino Ventura.

The highly entertaining 1969 caper film The Sicilian Clan stars three icons of European cinema: Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, and Lino Ventura. The Sicilian Clan was directed by Henri Verneuil, who had directed all three of these stars before: Delon and Gabin in Any Number Can Win, and Ventura in Greed in the Sun, which also starred French icon Jean-Paul Belmondo. Delon and Ventura had previously starred together in 1967’s The Last Adventure.  

Delon plays Roger Sartet, a criminal who escapes from the police thanks to the help of Gabin’s crime family. Delon’s mesmerizing acting is on display from the beginning, especially in the scene at the beginning as Sartet’s history is read aloud by the magistrate. Delon does so much acting with only his eyes—you just have to watch his face and his eyes. If you’re a fan of Delon’s handsome looks, you’ll enjoy the chase scene where he makes an escape, but doesn’t have time to put his shirt on, just throwing his sport coat over his shoulders.  

Jean Gabin brings instant gravitas and authority to his role as the head of the Manalese crime family. He’s fantastic, and there’s a great part in the making-of documentary that describes a scene in which we see the control that Gabin’s character wields over his family. The dialogue was whittled down and whittled down, until what you see in the finished film is just a line or two—minimal dialogue for the maximum effect.  

Lino Ventura is exceptional as the police investigator Le Goff. Ventura had such a wonderful character actor face, and like Gabin, he inhabits his character naturally and easily. Le Goff is trying to quit smoking, so he spends much of the movie with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, a funny touch. When Le Goff finally lights a cigarette in the second half of the film, I almost expected him to say, ala Lloyd Bridges in Airplane! “Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.”  

The Sicilian Clan is a stylish and smart movie, and there are many memorable elements in it, including Ennio Morricone’s infectiously catchy score. But there are moments with no music—such as Sartet’s escape from a police van. There’s no music, no dialogue during this sequence. You just sit and watch, and the viewer creates the tension. It’s tremendously effective.  

The Sicilian Clan was filmed in two versions: French-language and English-language. The film had a distribution deal with 20th Century Fox, and Darryl F. Zanuck demanded an English version of the movie to justify the costly budget. I assumed that only the sequences with dialogue were filmed in both French and English, but the making-of documentary tells us that the entire movie was filmed in both versions! That seems like a waste of money to me, but whatever. Even though Gabin and Ventura both spoke English, their voices were dubbed for the English-language version. Delon’s English was good enough that he was undubbed for the English-language version.  

The lead female role is played by Irina Demick, who was discovered by Darryl F. Zanuck, and cast in the 1962 all-star D-Day epic The Longest Day. (Zanuck and Demick also had a romantic relationship.) Demick’s character has some romantic tension with Delon’s character, and their scenes together have a palpable electricity.  

The Sicilian Clan is an exciting, thrilling caper film with a fantastic cast, and I’d highly recommend it.  

Movie Review: L'Eclisse (The Eclipse), Starring Monica Vitti and Alain Delon, Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (1962)

Original poster for L'Eclisse, starring Monica Vitti and Alain Delon, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962.

Monica Vitti and Alain Delon make a gorgeous couple in L'Eclisse, 1962.

The 1962 Italian film L’Eclisse, (The Eclipse in English) is a fascinating film. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, it’s considered the last in a trilogy, with the other films being L’Avventura and La Notte. L’Eclisse stars the beautiful Monica Vitti and the beautiful Alain Delon.  

As with many European films of the 1960’s, to sum up the plot of L’Eclisse would be superfluous. The movie is not about the plot, it’s about the feeling that the movie gives you, the emotions it evokes. And from the very beginning, L’Eclisse puts the viewer in a specific emotional state. The first few minutes of the movie are a great example of how little a film has to do to evoke a certain mood. Without music or flashy editing, Antonioni perfectly evokes the stagnant atmosphere of a study/living room as Riccardo (Spanish actor Francisco Rabal) and Vittoria (Monica Vitti) wordlessly pondering their situation. We don’t need dialogue to tell us what is happening, we can see it all on the faces of Rabal and Vitti. Vittoria leaves Riccardo, and walks from his apartment (or house? I’m not sure) to her apartment building. The architecture of Rome and the EUR district plays a huge supporting role in this movie.  

Vittoria’s mother (Lilla Brignone) is often at the stock exchange, where her investments are handled by Piero, a handsome young stockbroker (Alain Delon). Unfortunately for Delon fans, his voice was dubbed in Italian. The actor who dubbed Delon has a harsher cadence and a lower tone than Delon’s speaking voice, which is too bad. The dubbed voice makes Piero come off as more arrogant. But I can offer no critique of Delon’s appearance in L’Eclisse, as he looks super handsome, as always.  

Piero makes a pass at Vittoria, but she dodges his kiss. She says at one point that she’s “bored and depressed,” which makes sense, given that she’s just coming out of her relationship with Riccardo. But many viewers will probably question her sanity as she avoids kisses from 1962 Alain Delon. Eventually, Vittoria and Piero kiss, after first kissing through a glass several times.  

The movie ends with Vittoria and Piero both promising to show up the following evening for another date. Then there’s a seven-minute-long montage as night falls, and we see that they both fail to show up at the meeting spot.  

What does it all mean? L’Eclisse is definitely a study of loneliness, and the film takes an existential view of modern life. I think part of the point of L’Eclisse is to show how difficult it is to maintain a relationship, romantic or otherwise, in modern life, something that has only accentuated in the 62 years since L’Eclisse was released. With new relationships, it’s almost always easier to say “no” than to say “yes.” It’s easy to find reasons why you shouldn’t do something, it’s more difficult to find reasons why you should do something. To have a relationship begin, both people need to be willing to say “yes.” To have two people say “yes” at the same time is a rare and special thing that shouldn’t be taken for granted.  

L’Eclisse is a film that will stick with you long after you watch it.  

Movie Review: Diabolically Yours, Starring Alain Delon and Senta Berger, Directed by Julien Duvivier (1967)

The Blu-Ray cover of Diabolically Yours, 1967. That eyebrow, tho.

Alain Delon and Senta Berger make a gorgeous couple in Diabolically Yours, 1967.

Gorgeous Senta Berger and handsome Alain Delon.

"Do I still look devastatingly handsome?"

The 1967 French thriller Diabolically Yours was the last movie of acclaimed director Julien Duvivier, who died in October of 1967, just two months before Diabolically Yours was released. Diabolically Yours stars French actor Alain Delon and Austrian-German actress Senta Berger, and together they make a gorgeous screen couple.

Diabolically Yours follows Delon as he wakes up in the hospital after a car crash. Delon has amnesia, and when Berger arrives at the hospital and says she’s his wife, he doesn’t remember her. (Don’t worry ladies, the crash didn’t affect Delon’s handsome face.) Berger takes Delon back to their fantastically huge house, and he tries to recover his memory. But is everything as straightforward as it seems? Who exactly is Kim the butler, who seems fixated on Berger? (Kim is perfectly played by Peter Mosbacher.) And what about Delon’s friend and doctor Frederic, who is always hanging around? (Expertly essayed by Sergio Fantoni.)

The performances in the movie are all excellent. Delon can convey so much emotion with just a glance, and Fantoni and Mosbacher give their supporting roles just the right touch of creepiness. Senta Berger is excellent, and she looks gorgeous in all the many costumes she wears throughout the film. The costume designer did a terrific job, as both Berger and Delon look fantastic—notice how Delon’s robe matches his blue eyes. Delon always looks handsome, of course, and he looks very sharp in the scenes where he’s wearing all black. Delon and Berger look so good together that I could watch a movie called Alain Delon and Senta Berger Watch Paint Dry in 1967.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but after watching the movie, I wondered if it might have been improved if the big reveals at the end had instead been revealed to the audience at the beginning of the movie? Obviously, you’d have to change the structure of the movie, but I think you could still create suspense and tension doing so.

Diabolically Yours was released in France at the end of 1967, just two months after his iconic performance in Le Samourai. Diabolically Yours isn’t a masterpiece on the level of Le Samourai, but it’s still an entertaining and stylish film.

Movie Review: Le Samourai, Starring Alain Delon, Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (1967)

 

The cover of the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of Le Samourai, starring Alain Delon, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville.

Poster for the 1972 US release of Le Samourai, titled The Godson.

Alain Delon, as the stylish hitman Jef Costello.

Delon wearing the iconic trenchcoat and fedora combination that he sports throughout much of the film.

Alain Delon kisses his real-life wife, Nathalie Delon, on the set of Le Samourai, 1967. Director Jean-Pierre Melville is behind them, wearing sunglasses.

Director Jean-Pierre Melville and actor Alain Delon on the set of Un Flic. Here you can see the distinctive way that Melville wears his wristwatch.

Le Samourai is one of Alain Delon’s most iconic roles. As the trench coat wearing hitman Jef Costello, Delon delivered a cool, detached performance that is a classic of screen minimalism. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, Le Samourai is one of the masterpieces of the French New Wave of the 1960’s.

I first saw Le Samourai when it was re-released in the United States in March of 1997. The first U.S. release of Le Samourai was in 1972, 5 years after it was released in France. Capitalizing on the success of The Godfather, it was released in the U.S. as The Godson. Ironically enough, the 1997 re-release of Le Samourai occurred just weeks before the 25^th anniversary re-release of The Godfather.

I was at least aware of who Alain Delon was before I saw Le Samourai in 1997. I may have already seen Delon as the pilot in The Concorde Airport ’79. (I was oddly obsessed with the Airport movie series, probably because the spoof Airplane! has been one of my favorite movies since I was a little kid.) I knew that Alain Delon was a handsome French leading man. Then I saw Le Samourai, and Alain Delon became the coolest, most handsome guy I’d ever seen.

Le Samourai was heavily influenced by American film noir, and even though Le Samourai was filmed in color, Melville’s color palette is so limited that it’s almost a black and white film. The movie opens with a shot of a room, and Delon blends in so much with his surroundings that we barely even notice him lying on the bed. Jef’s room is all black and gray, and it looks like it could be the bleak setting of a Samuel Beckett play. I don’t know if Melville was influenced by Beckett or not, but Le Samourai exhibits a fatalistic minimalism that wouldn’t be out of place in Beckett’s work.

The first word of dialogue isn’t spoken until 10 minutes into the movie. Yet the film pulls you in, and the first 10 minutes are a great example of establishing character and mood without using dialogue. We don’t need any dialogue, we just watch Jef, and Delon’s eyes tell us everything we need to know about his character.

Alain Delon is fantastic at conveying so much emotion without words. In Le Samourai, La Piscine, and Plein Soleil, (Purple Noon) Delon draws the viewer in with minimum effort. Yes, Delon commands attention because he’s extremely good-looking, but he’s much more than just a pretty face. In Le Samourai Delon has pared everything down to the bare minimum. There are no extraneous movements or busyness in Jef’s actions or movements. It’s a remarkable performance.

To discuss the plot of Le Samourai would be superfluous, since it’s really all about the style of the film. The supporting performances are excellent, including Delon’s then-wife Nathalie Delon, making her film debut. Nathalie Delon looks gorgeous—there’s something about those mid-60’s European women with their long, straight hair that gets me every time. Nathalie’s character wears a brown leather coat to the police station at 4AM, looking impossibly sexy.

Another newcomer to film was Cathy Rosier, a fashion model who plays the pianist in the nightclub. Rosier does an excellent job, as she needs to be interesting enough to draw the attention of the solitary Jef.

Francois Perier plays the police superintendent, and he’s fantastic. He brings a bustling energy to the role that contrasts sharply with Delon’s minimalism. The lengths that the superintendent goes to try and track down Costello are ridiculous.

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of Le Samourai is a gorgeous presentation of the film, and there are a generous selection of extras. There’s an interesting 1970 interview with Melville in which he says: “I’d like viewers to come away from my films unsure whether they’ve understood them. I want to leave them wondering.” That’s an interesting statement for a director to make—elsewhere, Melville talks of the filmmaker’s obligation to make popular art. But maybe part of what Melville meant is that he wants people to discuss his movies after they’ve seen them—he wants to give them something to think about on the way home.

Melville was obsessed with hats, and one of his assistant directors tells us that he and Delon spent an hour going over the exact gestures with which Jef would put on his fedora and run his hand over the brim. They practiced until it became not merely an actor repeating a gesture, but the inevitable performance of a ritual for Jef.

As I was watching Le Samourai, I noticed that Delon wears his wristwatch on his right wrist, with the watch face on the inside of his arm, rather than the outside, as most people do. I notice things like this because I’m left-handed, and I wear my watch on my right wrist, as most left-handed people tend to do. I was filled with excitement for a brief moment—is Alain Delon left-handed, just like me? A quick Google search confirmed that he’s not. Delon signs autographs with his right hand, and most of the time wears his watch on his left wrist, like most right-handers do. But the extras on the Blu-Ray showed me that Jean-Pierre Melville wore his wristwatch on his right wrist, with the watch face on the inside of his arm. For a director as attuned to detail as Melville was, he no doubt instructed Delon to wear his watch that way. I’m not sure if Melville was left-handed or right-handed, though.

Le Samourai was the first movie Delon made with Melville, and they made two more movies together: 1970’s Le Cercle Rouge, and 1972’s Un Flic. One of the documentaries included was a 2011 short film titled Melville Delon: Of Honor and Of Night, directed by Olivier Bohler. One of Melville’s nephews tells the story that Delon and Melville had a falling out after the filming of Un Flic. When Delon heard that Melville had suffered a heart attack, he wanted to fly back to Paris, but the weather was too poor. Instead, he had his chauffeur drive him back to Paris. When Melville’s nephew told Delon that Melville was dead, Delon collapsed in tears. Delon helped Melville’s widow and family after Melville’s death, indicating the strong bond that the two men shared.

Le Samourai is a cinematic masterpiece, and it’s one of the key movies in the screen career of the legendary Alain Delon.