L'arme à gauche (1965)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Claude Sautet

Writers:

José Luis Dibildos (writer)
Fouli Elia (writer)

Release Date:

18 June 1965 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Foreign Language Adaptation | Based On Novel

Cast

Lino Ventura	...	Jacques Cournot
Sylva Koscina	...	Rae Osborne
Alberto de Mendoza	...	Hendrix
Leo Gordon	...	Morrison
Antonio Casas
Antonio Martín	...	Ruiz
Ángel del Pozo
José Jaspe
Ángel Menéndez
Jean-Claude Bercq	...	Avery (as Jean-Claude Berq)
Jack E. Leonard	...	Keefer

Also Known As:

Armas para el Caribe (Spain)
Corpo a corpo (Italy)
Guns for the Dictator
The Dictator's Guns (USA)
Un yate hacia Jamaica (Spain) (working title)

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

France | Italy | Spain

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Spain:18 | West Germany:12 (nf)

Filming Locations:

Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company:

Intermondia Films

Movie Connections:

Featured in Claude Sautet ou La magie invisible (2003)

A man called Ventura. Lino Ventura.

Excellent adventure yarn, great locations, moody music. The last "action-picture" from the late great french director Claude Sautet - from this he went on and did Les choses de la vie, Cesar et Rosalie, Vincent, Francois, Paul et les autres, plus the two masterpieces Un coeur en hiver and Nelly et M.Arnaud, his final movie, from 1994. By the way, he also wrote Borsalino (for Jacques Deray) and Les yeux sans visage (for Georges Franju). L'arme a gauche is not, by all means, a great movie - but compared to the contemporary crap we're fed every day it's outstanding. The plot concerns a ship stolen by gun dealers somewhere in Central America, but it's merely an excuse for 102 minutes of pure joy, given the fact that the lead is played by l'inoubliable Lino Ventura. He alone makes this little movie worth seeing - I mean, the guy was the walking definition of the term cool... Those of you not familiar with Ventura (shame on you!) must not believe that looks are everything - check out his eyes, his moves and his harsh voice in Le clan de siciliens, Ne nous fachons pas or Adieu poulet (not to mention Les tontons flingueurs) and you will agree that he was in the same league with Jean Gabin. To put it another way, one of the best actors ever.