Claude Sautet said after the shooting that he did not know that the Abel Davos - Danos - character was inspired by a gangster who collaborated with the Nazis against French resistance and Jews during German occupation.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #434.
This film is inspired from actual events and character: Abel Danos, who was a gangster heavily involved in the French Gestapo in Paris, rue Lauriston, between 1941 and 1944. Giovanni forgets this and magnifies this character, as he will later do in other of his stories and novels.