L'Aîné des Ferchaux
Jean-Pierre Melville
Michel Maudet, a young boxer, has just lost his third fight in a row and his manager has told him that he is going to break off their association. The same evening, Dieudonné Ferchaux, an ageing banker, learns that he is going to be arrested. Before fleeing to the United States, he places an advert to take on a "secretary-body guard". Michel applies and Ferchaux hires him ...
With : Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Vanel, Michèle Mercier, Malvina, Stefania Sandrelli
Screenplay : Jean-Pierre Melville (d'après le roman éponyme de Georges Simenon)
Image : Henri Decaë
Sound : Julien Coutellier, Jean-Claude Marchetti
Editing : Monique Bonnot, Claude Durand
Decors : Daniel Guéret
Screenplay : Jean-Pierre Melville (d'après le roman éponyme de Georges Simenon)
Image : Henri Decaë
Sound : Julien Coutellier, Jean-Claude Marchetti
Editing : Monique Bonnot, Claude Durand
Decors : Daniel Guéret
Production : Spectacles Lumbroso, Ultra-Films
With L'Aîné des Ferchaux, Melville is recognised as being "the most American of French directors". His first film in colour is also his last with Jean-Paul Belmondo, who he puts opposite a grand old actor of French cinema, Charles Vanel, even if working with Vanel proved to be stormy. Adapted from a novel by Georges Simenon, "L'Aîné des Ferchaux is a film which is totally faithful to its author, while being totally foreign to the novel. Where I was totally unfaithful is in the relationships between Michel Maudet and Dieudonné Ferchaux ..." (J-P Melville). Since his first film, the staging of ambivalent and hidden relationships is a constant in Melville's world, combined here with the theme of lost innocence.