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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Jean-Pierre Melville (writer)
Georges Pellegrin (writer)
more
Release Date:
25 October 1967 (France) more
Tagline:
De kaldte ham Samoraien - den ensomme morder
Plot:
Hitman Jef Costello is a perfectionist who always carefully plans his murders and who never gets caught... more | full synopsis
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Birthday Suits: Immortal Beloveds
(From FilmExperience. 8 November 2009, 6:27 AM, PST)
John Woo Considering Two English-Language Projects; Wants to Remake Le Samouraï
(From Slash Film. 8 October 2009, 7:30 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
An ultra stylized icon of urban cool more (56 total)
Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Alain Delon | ... | Jef Costello | |
| François Périer | ... | The Superintendant | |
| Nathalie Delon | ... | Jane Lagrange | |
| Cathy Rosier | ... | Valérie, la pianiste (as Caty Rosier) | |
| Jacques Leroy | ... | Gunman | |
| Michel Boisrond | ... | Wiener | |
| Robert Favart | ... | Barkeeper | |
| Jean-Pierre Posier | ... | Olivier Rey | |
| Catherine Jourdan | ... | Hatcheck Girl | |
| Roger Fradet | ... | 1st inspector | |
| Carlo Nell | ... | 2nd inspector | |
| Robert Rondo | ... | 3d inspector | |
| André Salgues | ... | Garage keeper | |
| André Thorent | ... | Policeman / cab driver | |
| Jacques Deschamps | ... | Policeman |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Frank Costello, faccia d'angelo (Italy)
The Godson (USA)
more
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
105 min | USA:101 min
Language:
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Certification:
Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:16
Filming Locations:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
According to Rui Nogueira (author of the book "Melville on Melville" published in 1976), the caged bird shown as Jef Costello's pet in "Le Samourai" was the only casualty of the fire that destroyed Melville's studio in 1967. more
Goofs:
Factual errors: When rounding up suspects the inspector refers to the population as 10 million. The 1968 population of Paris city proper was only 2.6 million. The population of the urban area was only 8.2 million. more
Quotes:
Jeff Costello:
Why say you did not recognize me?
Valérie:
Why kill Marty?
Jeff Costello:
I was to be paid.
Valérie:
What had he done to you?
Jeff Costello:
Not a thing. I didn't know him. I met him for the first and last time 24 hours ago.
[pause]
Valérie:
What sort of man are you?
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Maai hung paak yan (2001) more
FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (56 total)
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Melville's masterpiece about a contract killer, a modern day samuraï. He makes brilliant use of the city he loved so much, Paris. The feel, the sounds, the streets, the noise, it's all hauntingly cold and distant but at the same time he makes Paris seem like the coolest city in the world.
In the beginning of the film Melville uses a beautiful static shot of over 4 minutes to establish the audience with a seemingly empty room, then we see smoke circling upwards. There must be someone in the room but it's practically impossible to determine where the smoke is coming from. Finally Jeff Costello gets up from his bed, which wasn't recognizable as such in the first place, and appears on screen. The whole set-up is more reminiscent of a moving replica of a painting by the surrealist Paul Delvaux than anything else in modern cinema. Another surreal set piece is when after his first hit, all possible suspects are brought in at a police station, including Delon himself. Not one by one but all of 'em at the same time. In the next scene we see at least a hundred "gangsters", all wearing trench coats and hats, in a large hall, where they will be interrogated "en plein public". Genuinely strange procedures but handled with such care and stylishness that it becomes completely believable. It gives the somewhat humorous suggestion that the streets of Paris are populated by hundreds, even thousands, of trenchcoat-wearing gangsters, all loners, only seeing each other at card games and occasions like this.
Alain Delon is the perfect embodiment of gangster coolness in this career-defining role as a hit-man in Paris, a modern-day samuraï. "Le Gangster", as the French lovingly call them. Off course, these gangsters don't exist anymore and they probably never existed at all. French Gangsters must have been redefining their look after seeing Delon in this film. His association in real life with French criminal circles, in particular the Marseille underworld, has always given his performances a very strange aura.
As a kid, I regularly visited my grandmother who lived near the city of Marseille and on French television I saw lots of French gangster movies (well, my parents let me watch with them). Alain Delon was in quite a few of them. When I grew older and could identify most of the French screen legends, Delon as no other came to represent the ultimate gangster. An stylized icon of urban cool. I'm also convinced that his character Jef Costello in Le Samouraï was the inspiration for the hissing and whispering fellow in the trench coat in Sesame Street (did he have a name?), something like a gangster, a criminal. A mysterious strange man you should avoid as a kid. I'll be damned if I'm wrong, but I still see Alain Delon in Sesame Street!