Thursday 22 December 2022

L'Ainé des Ferchaux / Magnet of Doom (1963 Jean-Pierre Melville & scr)

A Georges Simenon story. Jean-Paul Belmondo is a washed up boxer who ditches his girlfriend and goes to work for bastard Charles Vanel, who admits to have killed three black people and is being pursued on financial matters. They flee, heading initially for New York to pick up some cash, then road trip South, ending up in New Orleans. The old man becomes needy and dependent, the younger man (an alternative French title is Un jeune homme honorable) more ruthless and independent. A strange film, doesn't really click, but interesting. It's that ending that makes it - Belmondo rejecting the old man's money (having just saved his life).

With Michele Mercier, Malvina Silberberg and Stefania Sandrelli. Photographed in Franscope by Henri Decae, music by Georges Delarue.




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