Mélodie en sous-sol (1963)

Director:

Henri Verneuil

Writers:

Michel Audiard (dialogue)
Zekial Marko (novel)

Release Date:

19 March 1963 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

A crime so big it cost a fortune just to commit It!

Plot:

Charles (Jean Gabin), a sixtyish career criminal fresh out of jail, rejects his wife's plan for a quiet life of bourgeois respectability...

Plot Keywords:

Cannes | Casino | Vault | Caper | Career Criminal

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Jean Gabin	...	Charles
Alain Delon	...	Francis Verlot
Claude Cerval	...	Le commissaire de police
Viviane Romance	...	Ginette
Henri Virlojeux	...	Mario (as Henri Virlogeux)
Jean Carmet	...	Le barman
José Luis de Villalonga	...	M. Grimp (as José-Luis de Vilallonga)
Rita Cadillac	...	Liliane
Jimmy Davis	...	Sam
Dominique Davray	...	Léone
Dora Doll	...	Countess Doublianoff
Germaine Montero	...	Mme Verlot (as Germaine Montéro)
Maurice Biraud	...	Louis Naudin
Carla Marlier	...	Brigitte

Also Known As:

Any Number Can Win (USA)
Anyone Can Win
Big Grab
Colpo grosso al casino (Italy)
The Big Snatch (UK)

Runtime:

118 min | France:103 min (color version)

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French | English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Company:

Cité Films

Trivia:

The entire heist sequence lasts 26 and half minutes, and has very little dialogue.

Movie Connections:

Featured in La très très grande entreprise (2008)

Soundtrack:

Theme from Any Number Can Win

9/10

I don't know why this movie is so little-celebrated -- it's terrific. It's so assured. It brings in the worn and smooth Jean Gabin for his last job (of course), and through some exchanges of witty banter gives us some time to get to know him and his wife before introducing his former cellmate, Alain Delon, as the leather-jacketed toughie. They're both excellent here, especially Gabin, who's polite but still certainly in control. He gives a wryness, like a fat Orson Welles, to his performance. The hot-tempered Delon gives a jolt of vitality to the picture. The entire movie is nice and slow, perfectly glamorous, the best of swinging, jazzy '60s cool. In a conventional movie, when Delon is told to seduce a ballerina so he and Gabin can gain a backstage pass to the theater, the courting would have ended with him buying her a drink. But in this film, it lasts for a good half an hour. And it's never boring. Those nice, long sequences explain everything fully. Not the plot, per se, but elements of the plot -- Delon's seducing of the dancer (which he mucks up more than once); Delon's brother-in-law, who in a normal movie would have been nothing but a side character, here is fully-fleshed out; Gabin's wife. And that long, languorous rhythm is what makes the major, lengthy set piece so memorable -- it's where Delon slinks around, slipping up occasionally, climbing up stairs, crawling through a ventilation shaft, and hiding in an elevator (very "Mission: Impossible"), eventually leading to the robbery. And it has one of the best endings to any caper movie that I've seen. 9/10