Dishonor Among Thieves

Symphony for a Massacre. In a Parisian gambling den, five men gather to blueprint a million-dollar caper. They ante up $100,000 apiece and dispatch -one of their number by train to Marseille to buy 50 kilograms of narcotics, easily resalable at double the price. The bagman shows off a roomy new briefcase that he hopes will be adequate for his assignment.

Once the details of the plot are arranged, Director Jacques Deray lets his camera single out a lacertilian sharper known as Jabeke (Jean Rochefort), who has long since betrayed the principle of honor among thieves by dallying with the wife (Daniela Rocca) of his colleague Valoti (Claude Dauphin). Now Jabeke ventures forth to buy a hairpiece and false mustache and a roomy new briefcase. Before the bagman departs for Marseille, Jabeke departs for Brussels--on a breathlessly devious itinerary that leads him by car and train to Lyon, to Brussels, then back to perform a lethal mission aboard the Paris-Marseille train. He returns by morning to his Brussels hotel room in time to receive a phone call: his agitated pals report that the bagman's body and an empty briefcase have been found on a railroad embankment in southern France.

In summary, Symphony's allegro first movement sounds like a reprise of Rififi or The Asphalt Jungle. But Director Deray, however assiduously he has studied earlier masterworks of the genre, proves that his own cinematic style is cool, original and free of sentimentality. Against Michel Magne's pulsing jazz score, with Paris as a harsh grey backdrop, he works this icy exercise in suspense toward its inexorable and chilling conclusion. Jabeke is forced to a second murder when a wily old confrere seizes upon a telltale remark. New revelations spring from an overlooked newspaper, an unexpected bundle of counterfeit bills. And while the death roll rises, moviegoers who may be bored with the cuteness of tongue-in-cheek thrillers can revel in the superb detail and ironic impact of a crime melodrama that takes its dead seriously.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.