This movie is one more faithful adaptation of a Pierre Lesou novel, one of his best, with LE DOULOS, MORT D'UN CONDE, and COEUR DE HARENG. Forget LUCKY JOE. Pierre Lesou was a terrific novelist, unfortunately underrated, now forgotten. Jean-Pierre Melville would have made a true masterpiece with such a novel. Melville was the ONLY director able to feel the true meaning of the Lesou's atmosphere. Lesou was for Melville the same that Tod Browning was for Lon Chaney. The two of them were like the two half of an orange. Like the bullet fit with the barrel. Only them were able to describe the complexity of the manhood, friendship among gangsters, far above the real situations in actual life. A world of abstraction. Not for all audiences. LE DOULOS, one of Melville's masterpieces, is the perfect example of what I just said above. So, speaking of this one, the director Claude Bernard Aubert made a good work. The characters are well chosen. Even Adamo. Jess Hahn and Michel Constantin are here the characters of the book. In an outstanding accurate way. And as in LE DOULOS, you have the scheme of the error of judgment leading to tragedy because of a mistake among hoodlums. Jess Hahn gives a very ambivalent character, sometimes a good teddy bear, very funny to watch and a ruthless cold blooded killer in another scene, when he executes a man lying on the ground. And the character symphony is also interesting; Theo character, at first defends Philippe, the rookie, whilst Bob harasses him. Later in the movie, it is the contrary, Theo wants to kill Philippe whilst Bob - who wants to protect Philippe, a very moving performance - will do anything to prevent the tragedy.
Only a f...happy ending that was dictated by the producers. But on my taping off, from a VHS tape, I deleted this f...happy ending made for sissies.
