La grande razzia

An output as prolific as that of Henri Decoin is bound to be variable but whatever his material he was never less than capable and at times excelled, notably in his commendable Film Noirs of the Forties.

Unsurprisingly French Cinema has produced superlative adaptations of the literary collection Série Noire and here, in what is arguably his last great film, Decoin's choice of a low-key, slow-paced, distanced, near documentary approach has resulted in an absolutely absorbing version of Auguste le Breton's novel.

Decoin had previously worked with Jean Gabin on the excellent 'La Vérité sur Bébé Donge' in which Gabin's role was not exactly a jackpot of admirable character traits but in this he is as tough-as-nails and called upon to be just as ruthless as the criminals he is pursuing. Of course once he had made the iconic 'Touchez pas au Grisbi' for Jacques Becker, his grittier image was firmly established but even his greatest fans I'm sure would have been taken aback by his steely, hard-bitten performance in this. A little bit of the old charm comes through in his relationship with the luscious Magali Noel who is young enough to be his daughter and as a fifty-one year old he has wisely elected to keep his pyjamas on.

Decoin was a great admirer of 'Grisbi' and has used that film's cinematographer Pierre Montazel as well as reuniting Gabin with Lino Ventura, Paul Frankeur and Michel Jourdan. As Hemingway proved, killers that come in pairs are most effective and here the deadly duo of Ventura and Albert Rémy are chilling. Also of note are Marcel Dalio as a well groomed low-life, having played opposite Gabin in Renoir's masterpiece 'La Grande Illusion' twenty years earlier and the extraordinary Lila Kedrova as one of cinema's most wretched creatures.

This gripping, groundbreaking piece is a precursor to the nastier neo/polar noirs that were to come but with the passage of time its depiction of certain characters is now deemed politically incorrect.

The film offers a grim reminder that although the war against 'the scourge of drugs' might at one time have seemed winnable, it has long since become a lost cause.