Quand la ville s'éveille (1977) User Reviews

While the city awakes

[dbdumonteil · 18 May 2006]

A tribute to John Huston's "while the city sleeps" ?Perhaps so ,but the movie significantly fails in its purpose.It's the umpteenth story of cops and robbers.

An armored van is attacked and the gangsters hide the loot in a graveyard.RIP.

But a young photojournalist saw it all!And he took a whole lot of pictures in order to...... achieve a scoop? infuriate the cops (it was trendy in the wake of the May 68 events)? blackmail the gangsters and make a lot of dough?He cannot make up his mind (or is it the script writers who cannot?)For the script is mediocre,the dialog is poor ,the director spineless.

mayhem in Paris

[myriamlenys · 8/10 · 12 July 2023]

Lured out of retirement by the promise of rich loot, an ageing gangster unites a band of suitable accomplices. For weeks they prepare the attack on a van transporting a fortune. On the day of the attack, all goes according to plan but for one pesky detail : the gangsters get photographed by a young press photographer who happened to be in the neighborhood. Now their deeds are immortalized in a fine series of crystal-clear images...

"Quand la ville s'éveille" is a violent gangster movie set in Paris. The performances are good, the urban locations are used in an effective way and the fights and stunts are well-choreographed. The music, composed by the great Astor Piazzolla, successfully evokes an atmosphere of smoke-filled nightclubs and louche gambling dens.

The plot revolves around the young photographer's refusal to share his photographs with the police. Instead he uses the photographs for a strange cat-and-mouse game - perhaps because he sees himself as a rebel, perhaps because he relishes being a jerk, perhaps because he smells an opportunity to make money ? I never grasped his full motives and I suppose I'm not the first viewer to feel that way. So this seems like a minus in an otherwise accomplished movie.

I found the last few minutes strangely affecting.

Solid French crime flick

[searchanddestroy-1 · 10/10 · 21 July 2019]

It is obvious that this feature is a tribute to John Huston's ASPHALT JUNGLE, especially in the last image of the movie; exactly the same as the Huston's masterpiece. Pierre grasset - director and main character - was also a Jean-Pierre Melville's sidekick - LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE and DEUX HOMMES DANS MANHATTAN - and this is also a kind of tribute to the fabulous French director whom even Quentin Tarantino takes inspiration from. But this is not a masterpiece, just a solid crime film. Two journalists are witness of a daring armored truck heist and so they begin to be the preys for the gangsters. Raymond Pellegrin is excellent here with his co star Grasset, whom he also was involved in an armored truck heist in LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE. A professional gangster, armed robber, with a good burgess looking face, except his eyes so tough, so fierce: remember him in LE DEUXIEME SOUFFLE and BRIGADE ANTI GANGS; he played in those two movies characters close to this one. A mastermind criminal with family and his own night club, restaurant or truck company. I love this movie, and the way the gangsters are described.