Watch Any Number Can Win For Free

Powerful

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

So Gabin out of prison, decides to ride his last score with Francis, played by Alain Delon ... On the way to rob the safe of the Palm Beach, a casino in Cannes.Melody en sous-sol (the title is already brilliant) with my favorite duo Gabin, Delon. Gabin always made me think of my grandfather, a real man. Delon it has never done better. I love this old French, the 60's, the clothes, the fags, the pick-up, the jazz music and with that a famous story of truants ... Then we taste Audiard: "You raves not on the sea, it has always been there" To watch again and again .

Verneuil made a nice,rather banal career with decent,unambitious "american movies" like this one,and also he became almost respected.I grant this was,anyway,somehow better,and surely more entertaining than his previous,French-populist phase.I guess I have seen some 8 of his films (Le Mouton a Cinq Pattes,Des gens sans importance,Un singe en Hiver,Mélodie en sous-sol ,Le Clan Des Siciliens,Le Serpent ,I Comme Icare,Les Morfalous );I grant some of them are rather good;I do not consider them extraordinary. But I think no one does.I've seen I Comme Icare when I was 12 years,in '90.I've liked much Le Serpent ."Melodie ..." is well-paced,sympathetic,clean,honest,and,above all, suspenseful.All it has to offer are its two leads,and that's not little.Don't expect Ocean's Eleven ,yet.Gabin has a honorary role in "Melodie ...",and not only his,but all the roles are simply epic conventions--no characterization at all.

It's so refreshing to sit back, relax, and enjoy a slow simmering casino robbery caper. No dizzy editing, no mindless car chases, no wiz kid gadgets, no convoluted but inexplicable plots. Just an old hand released after serving 5 years, coming home to his wife and vowing that he will pull off a big one and live happily ever after. Never hurried, things get better and better. The year is 1963 and the venue, the French Riviera, as a matter of fact, Cannes. Better still, it's in black and white.Here we have young Alain Delon's explosive appearance that makes him look like James Dean for a few minutes, before he resumes the persona we know him so well by, cool and stylish. At the ending (and what an ending), we even see him in a little bit of a pensive mood. It is, however, old timer Jean Gabin who gives you every dollar's worth, portraying the old master, sturdy as a rock and clever as a fox, as Spencer Tracy might have played it.Following the caper through from the meticulous storytelling, we become so empathized with the principals that we are finally prepared for the ending. The situation is so devilishly set up that every tingle of tension in the air become palpable. Use of the camera is now swung to high gear, from the shot of Delon appearing at a distance through a circular archway with a bulky bag in each hand, to the frame with Gabin sitting at the near side of the swimming pool and Delon over at the far side, at an angle. You can hear the thundering silence as they exchange non-existent glances. The last twenty minutes in this movie would be the most memorable last twenty minutes in any movie that you have come across.

A prototypical heist flick. Old ex-con Jean Gambin is looking for one last score before he retires -- the robbery of a casino on the French Riveria. He enlists Delon, a cocky punk, to help him. Has all of the features: old guy looking for one last score, young active guy who still sort of needs to learn the ropes, complicated heist relying on split second timing, things that go wrong at the last second, unexpected developments, a lot of masquerades, etc. Early on there's some playing around with the notion that Gambin symbolizes a time that is passing, but that isn't really developed, settling down instead to more standard genre fare. Heist is clever and well done, the remake of Ocean's Eleven later stole some of the ideas here. Final shot has that typical Gallic "throw your hands up in despair" kind of thing going for it. Cast is good, with Delon in particular a standout in the kind of role he was meant to play in those years.