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| Le Doulos [1963] | ![Le Doulos [1963]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FJTYYD63L._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Jean-pierre Melville
Actors: Jean-paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, Rene Lefevre, Marcel Cuvelier
Studio: Bfi Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £8.68
You Save: £11.31 (57%)
New (6) from £7.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 10694
Format: Black & White, Pal, Widescreen
Languages: English (Subtitled), French (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Running Time: 106 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5035673005941
ASIN: B0001P1BIO
Theatrical Release Date: March 2, 1964
Release Date: April 26, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Betrayal and double crosses, style and irony, with some cool-looking trench coats October 25, 2008
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 other.
Melville's fascination with idealized and rigidly unreachable gangsters comes across almost as weird as Hitchcock's fascination with blond ice queens who can be humiliated. We're talking fetish, and if Melville and Hitchcock weren't such masterful moviemakers they'd probably be discussed in psychology textbooks and not in articles by film historians. But Melville and Hitchcock are masterful directors, and even their failures are interesting. Melville's Le Doulos is by no means a failure. It's a story of betrayal and double crosses and then more double crosses, some real, and some by tough men who make wrong assumptions. There's a sizable body count among those who wear trench coats and Borsalinos. The movie has that gritty, depressing, shadowed look of great noirs. If you're into masterful craftsmanship, Le Doulos is hard to beat.
Le Doulos tells us about Maurice Faugel (Serge Reggiani), a tired gangster just out of prison who knows someone informed on him. He kills the man, but did he get the right man? He plans a burglary, using his girl to check the place out and a friend, Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo), to loan him the safe-cracking equipment. Bad luck again; the cops show up, one gets killed and Faugel gets a bullet in his shoulder. This time we think we know who the stoolie is. We'd be foolish to place a bet on it. Or would we? Now the story becomes as much about Silien as Faugel. Belmondo's Silien may be an oily charmer, but Belmondo gives him dangerous shock value as well as star charisma. His questioning of Therese, Faugel's girl friend, is startling
I don't buy the theory that a storyline that appears confusing is probably a great director's way of either playing with the audience or having an approach that is just too subtle for most of us to grasp. My theory is that, more often than not, the director simply lost control of the material, or ran out of production and editing time, or possibly just got a little bored with the project. I have no idea which was the reason with Le Doulos, but the storyline, already intricate with double crosses, leaves a lot for last minute tidying up. Silien's recapitulation of events, shown in flashback, doesn't help much. I started to think I must be in an English drawing room listening to Hercule Poirot explain how it all happened. Except...did I miss something at the end? No, but you sure better have an excellent memory for characters seen once, almost instantly. When you see finally what the last twist is, it seemed to me to be a case of heavy-handed theatrical irony.
The movie is a great technical experience to watch. It's a fine example of Melville's technical mastery of his craft and his fascination with film gangsters and the self-imagined world he places them in. The story? For me, not all that involving; it's the storytelling that's the pay off.
Melville's reputation, in my view, rests firmly on Army of Shadows, Bob le Flambeur and, to a lesser extent, Le Cercle Rouge. The more he veered into gangster style at the expense of the story, the more he veered into the world of film dilettantes and of professors of film studies. You know, the kind who love long tracking shots. Melville deserves better than what some of his professional enthusiasts lavish on him.
The Region 1 Criterion issue of Le Doulos has a fine black and white film transfer as well as several extras.
 Melvillian gangster movie October 15, 2008
Le Doulos is one of Melville's gangster movies (as opposed to his war/opposition movies). The action takes place in a world of ultracool gangsters and policemen, all in similar clothes: hat and coat - and with their own code of honour and twisted morality. This is not intended to be a realistic movie but rather a part of the melvillian universe (as his other movies Samurai and Le Cercle Rouge). Here we are introduced to the Doulos character (played by Belmondo) who moves between the two worlds. The plot is very exciting and takes some surprising twists. My interpretation after watching Le Doulos is that these characters can't exist outside their black/white subworld, like a fish can't breathe outside water.
The movie is shot in black/white and the transfer by BFI is very good - there are a few short sequences with more grainy picture. Also there are a lot of extras like commentary by Melville scholar Ginette Vincendeau who is very interesting to listen to. As this DVD cost me only 8 GBP I recommend it and give it 5 stars.
Melville on speed August 6, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Le 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 become Melville's choice for later films. Lesser-known Serge Reggiani is equally splendid in the other major role of the film (he is the focus of the first half of the film).
This is a B&W film with 60s clothing styles for the women and 50s style for the men (trenchcoat and hats). Not as distinctive as the other films I've seen of Melville's, but, because of its storytelling and pacing, it's one I can recommend to people who wouldn't tolerate his slower-paced films. In other words, this one is just plain fun.
This DVD includes commentary for selected scenes and an on-camera lecture by French film expert, Ginette Vincendeau, and comments by Assistant Director to Melville, German-born Volker Schlondorff. Both are extremely fluent in English and offer fascinating information.
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