I searched for this movie since more than thirty years, a film never released in VHS or DVD, or shown on a TV channel - although I am not totally positive about this. After all, you have in this film Jean-Louis Trintignant, Bernard Fresson, Simone Signoret, Jean Bouise... Anyway, this is the only film Marcel Bozzuffi made. We can see it as a small tribute to the American culture and cinema. The title first, and Trintignant wears a typical American outfit - hat and overcoat -, drives an American car...for the rest, I must admit that it remains a pure good French feature, giving us a pure French atmosphere made of nostalgia, friendship, the kind of things you could find in many Claude Sautet's movies. No, nothing of a crime or noir atmosphere. Some French social study too, about normal people, not gangsters as we could have expected from Marcel Bozzuffi, who played lots of heavies in many crime flicks. We can compare it with Pierre Granier Deferre's LE FILS, starring Yves Montand, telling nearly the same scheme, but in a more intense noir scheme, a revenge tale. Nothing tremendous or unforgettable in this touching film full of lost or impossible dreams, told by folks which we can recognize ourselves in. Simone Signoret is poignant, and announces somewhere her character in LE CHAT, she made a couple of years later, with the same character name: Léone. It is also a strong tribute against war in Algeria. That's maybe the reason why this film was so ostracized, because French movies were afraid to talk about that, until the 2000's, and this film was made in 1969. A typical french ending too, so bitter sweet. Strangely, Françoise Fabian's character has no name in the cast. She was Marcel Bozzufi's mate in actual life.
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