Un flic (1972)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Jean-Pierre Melville

Writer:

Jean-Pierre Melville (writer)

Release Date:

1975 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

Bank robbery in small town ends with one of the robbers being wounded. The loot from the robbery is just a asset for the even more spectacular heist...

Plot Keywords:

Robbery | Heist | Bank Robbery | Bank | Drugs

Cast

Alain Delon	...	Commissaire Edouard Coleman
Richard Crenna	...	Simon
Catherine Deneuve	...	Cathy
Riccardo Cucciolla	...	Paul Weber
Michael Conrad	...	Louis Costa
Paul Crauchet	...	Morand
Simone Valère	...	Paul's wife
André Pousse	...	Marc Albouis
Jean Desailly	...	Distinguished gentleman who was robbed a statue
Valérie Wilson	...	Gaby
Henri Marteau	...	Police officer instructor of shooting
Catherine Rethi
Louis Grandidier
Philippe Gasté	...	Un policier
Dominique Zentar
Jako Mica
Jo Tafanelli
Stan Dylik
Georges Florian
Léon Minisini	...	Mathieu la Valise ('Suitcase Matthew')
Roger Fradet
Jacques Galland
Jean-Pierre Posier
Jacques Leroy
Michel Fretault
Gene Moyle
Nicole Témime
Pierre Vaudier

Directed by
Jean-Pierre Melville

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jean-Pierre Melville		writer

Produced by
Robert Dorfmann	....	producer

Original Music by
Michel Colombier

Cinematography by
Walter Wottitz

Film Editing by
Patricia Nény

Production Design by
Théobald Meurisse		(as Théo Meurisse)

Set Decoration by
Pierre Charron

Costume Design by
Colette Baudot

Makeup Department
Michel Deruelle	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Jean Drouin	....	unit manager
Phillip Kenny	....	unit production manager
Pierre Saint-Blancat	....	production manager (as Pierre Saint Blancat)

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Jean-François Delon	....	first assistant director
Bernard Girardot	....	trainee assistant director
Marc Grunebaum	....	assistant director
Philippe Martin	....	trainee assistant director
Pierre Tati	....	second assistant director

Art Department
René Albouze	....	property master
Enrique Sonois	....	assistant production designer

Sound Department
André Hervée	....	sound recordist
Maurice Laumain	....	sound editor
Jean Nény	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
André Domage	....	camera operator
Valery Ivanow	....	first assistant camera (as Valéry Ivanow)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Yves Saint-Laurent	....	costume designer: Catherine Deneuve's black dress

Editorial Department
Marie-Josée Audiard	....	assistant editor (as Marie-José Audiard)
Sophie Tatischeff	....	assistant editor (as Sophie Tati)

Music Department
Charles Aznavour	....	lyrics

Other crew
Phillip Kenny	....	location manager
Florence Moncorgé-Gabin	....	script girl (as Florence Moncorgé)
Jeanne Nataf	....	furs designer
Georges Pansu	....	title designer

Production Companies

• Corona Cinematografica
• Euro International Film (EIA)
• Oceania Produzioni Internazionali Cinematografiche
• Paris Film Productions

Distributors

• Allied Artists Pictures (1975) (USA) (dubbed)
• ClassicLine (2003) (Brazil) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Eurocitel  titles

Also Known As:

A Cop (International: English title) (informal literal title)
Dirty Money (USA) (DVD box title)
Notte sulla città (Italy)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris 8, Paris, France

Company:

Corona Cinematografica

Trivia:

While Alain Delon's character, Commissaire Coleman, examines a crime scene, we see a brief shot of a wall on which are inscribed several names including the one of his character in one of his previous collaborations with Jean-Pierre Melville: Jeff Costello, the "hero" of the Le samouraï (1967).

Movie Connections:

References Le samouraï (1967)

Soundtrack:

C'est Ainsi que les Choses Arrivent

The old economy still there

In Melville's last film, Alain Delon is a cop who pursues a small group of fortyish men who first rob a bank and then later intercept a large supply of drugs en-route to somewhere via a bag man on a train. The bank is beside a ruthless sea and the memorably bleached-out and forbidding opening scene is full of mist, rain, and wind that turn everything a sickly pastel. One of the robbers is wounded and they drive away with him -- a sequence that may have influenced Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs." But these men are as laconic as Quentin's are garrulous.

Nobody is morally pure in this story, or wholly evil. One of the robbers is a bank executive who's out of work and hides his wrongdoing from his worried wife. The cop, Edouard Coleman, whose ride is American, as is the robbers', is involved with crooked nightclub owner Simon's accomplice girlfriend, Cathy (Catherine Deneuve), who helps Simon clean up the mess when the robbery goes wrong. Edouard has to look the other way about her involvement. Her first appearance is ravishing: she slides sideways out of a doorway and pauses, framed there, looking perfectly beautiful. She slowly breaks into a smile as Coleman picks out a jazz ballad on the nightclub piano.

The drug mover who's intercepted is called "Matthew the Suitcase." The operation to steal his drugs is long and complicated and is "Un flic's" "Rififi" episode; it's more absorbing than the manhunt in "Le Cercle rouge," but the several plot strains are a bit disjointed.

Despite the ingenious drug heist, being a cop and being a crook are in a way just a job, a 'boulot' in "Un flic." Delon has some dash and dresses sharply but he lacks the panache of his character in "Le Samouraï." The robbers are dreary, determined fellows without the charisma of Yves Montand in "Le Cercle rouge." They're totally middle-aged and middle-class. This puts them on a par with most of the cops and perhaps illustrates Melville's epigraph, from pioneer French private eye (and former thief) François Eugène Vidocq, "The only emotion men awaken in a policeman are ambiguity and derision." This harmonizes with the viewpoint of the chief of police in Le Cercle rouge who repeatedly insists that everyone must be assumed to be guilty.

While that earlier chief of police worked out of a dark but cozy Victorian office, Coleman is in a bright modern building and has a phone in his car, but his well-lit office has a window on a brick wall. The dull routine of police work is signaled by the verbal rituals of the car-phone calls: His assistant always answers and says, "I'll pass you to him." Coleman listens, then says "Where's that?" and "We're going, I'll call you back later." The words never vary. And this flick about a "flic" never wavers from its economical unreeling that's worthy of the best Fifties noirs, despite being in faded blue-gray Technicolor. Melville got back one last time to the old brilliance. Even if the "noir" isn't quite noir, the mood is right, full of resignation and irony.

The plot doesn't quite parse, but neither did Le Doulos'. If it's true as Jack Mathews of the Daily News wrote about the reissued "Le Cercle rouge" that Melville's crime movies are "really about wearing raincoats and lighting up Gitanes and saying very little while being very loyal," then plot inconsistencies and even visual disparities not withstanding, it's still all good. And even if some of the earlier freshness and pungency were gone, in his last two films Melville showed even greater skill at editing and setting up his scenes. So if not canonical, Un flic is nonetheless another valuable work by this prince of darkness, this splendidly moody minimalist and inspirer of the French New Wave.