Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem
British Mystery Theater
Classics
Crime
Detectives
Film Noir
General
Mystery
Mystery & Suspense Masters
Neo-Noir
Series & Sequels
Suspense
Thrillers
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Any Number Can Win |
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Description:
The classic meets the cool when dapper Jean Gabin teams up with smoldering matinee idol Alain Delon in Henri Verneuil's 1962 caper film Any Number Can Win. White-haired Gabin carries decades of French crime films with him as the career criminal who shuffles home from a five-year prison stretch and finds himself a stranger among the new high-rise apartments that have sprung up around his cozy old cottage. Aging delinquent Delon (who looks as if he stepped out of the road show of Grease under his slick hair and black leather jacket) becomes his unlikely partner in a scheme to knock off the richest casino on the Mediterranean coast, the youthful brawn to Gabin's experience and calculation. Posing as rich high rollers, they scope out the joint, and Delon woos a leggy Swedish dancer in hot-blooded courtship, a shot of sex that slows the plot but provides its own small charms thanks to Verneuil's modern continental frankness and Delon's cocky charm. It's all part of the deliberate, precise groundwork laid for the heist, a masterfully realized sequence of calm, clean professionalism. The twist and the grueling tension are saved for the inspired denouement, a delicious set piece of ironic understatement. The swinging rock & roll score and handsome black-and-white widescreen photography are tasty flourishes to this tightly scripted, economically directed crime classic. --Sean Axmaker
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