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VHS : Doulos: The Finger ManIn association with Amazon.comstarring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre, Marcel Cuvelier directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville  EAN: 5035673001646 Format: PAL Number Of Discs: 1 Theatrical Release Date: March 02, 1964 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Amazon.com: Though he had forced his way into French film culture by working entirely outside his country's studio system in the 1940s and 1950s, by the 1960s director Jean-Pierre Melville was working with larger budgets and well-known actors such as Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of Le Doulos. An extension of Melville's fascination with the existential milieu of American gangster films, Le Doulos presents New Wave icon Belmondo as Silien, a man newly released from prison and by reputation a professional informer. A figure, then, of possible duplicity and ambiguity, Silien is the perfect Melvillian hero, difficult to read but propelled by internal forces manifested as direct action. Maintaining friendships with both cop and crook, Silien's notoriety as a "finger man" who informs on the latter is underscored when one acquaintance, a police inspector (Daniel Crohem), waits in ambush for another, a burglar (Serge Reggiani), to perform his next job. But did Silien actually rat out the fellow? Melville pushes the envelope of our perceptions by making it appear Silien did, and then goes through the tale again to reveal another story. A much darker film than his celebrated Bob le Flambeur, Le Doulos is an absorbing tale of a world that seems to exist between light and shadow. --Tom Keogh Average Rating:
 Rating: - Betrayal and double crosses, style and irony, with some cool-looking trench coats To dramatize gangsters because of some fictitious "code"...to romanticize them by dressing them in trench coats with the collars pulled up and Borsalinos on their heads...is not just naive, it's downright silly. One wonders what Melville, with Cagney and Raft in his system, would have done with some modern thugs like Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano, Peter "Rabbit" Calabrese or Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik. These hefty slobs would look ludicrous in fedoras, and their "code" included back shooting each ... Read More Rating:  - Melville's Promise of Films Still to Come.Based on a novel by Pierre Lesou, Jean-Pierre Melville's French crime-thriller Le Doulos (The Finger Man) stars Jean-Paul Belmondo (Classe Tous Risques; Breathless) as Silien, a gangster recently released from prison and Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani), also an ex-con. As the film's title suggests, Silien may have informed on Faugel to the police following what should have been a simple heist. Through the characters of Maurice and Silien, Melville's film explores themes of friendship and loyalty between ... Read More Rating:  - A Theft and Revenge Story1949 La Silence de la Mer 1950 Les Enfants Terribles (Criterion) ***** 1953 Quand tu liras cetta lettre 1956 Bob le Flambeur (Criterion) ***** 1959 Deux Hommes dans Manhattan 1961 Leon Morin 1962 Le Doulos (Criterion) *** 1963 Aime de Ferchaux 1966 Le Deuxieme Souffle (Criterion) ***** 1967 Le Samourai (Criterion) ***** 1969 Army of Shadows (Criterion) ***** 1970 Le Cercle Rouge (Criterion) ***** Read More Rating: - Melville on speedLe doulos = hat = police informant. For Jean-Pierre Melville, this is a surprisingly fast-moving story based on the distrust between criminals, police and police informants. It turns into a fine whodunnit so it helps to keep you wits about you. This is the second Jean-Paul Belmondo performance I've seen in a Melville films and they were both outstanding. He is more subdued in these films than is typical for Jean-Paul, yet he has more life and dimensions than Alain Delon who would ... Read More Browse for similar items by category: 
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