Now considered a classic by the likes of Scorsese and Tarantino, Le Doulos got a harder ride when it came out in 1962. “Talkative and tiresome,” the New York Times called it. Maybe I caught it on a bad day, but I’m inclined to agree. When it comes to Jean-Pierre Melville, give me Le Samouraï, Army of Shadows or Un Flic any day.
Only a fool would dismiss the film though, which is packed full of good things and is Melville to the end of its filmic digits. It’s all about masculine codes, in other words, or more specifically the breaking of them. Who among a gang of crooks is the snitch (The Snitch is how the title is often sold in English)? Long, lean and hyper-masculine Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo)? Surely not. Or maybe the pouchy Maurice (Serge Reggiani), Silien’s partner (ie rival) in crime? Or maybe someone else in the gang that’s heisted a trove of jewels, around which the entire film appears to revolve. It might even be the super-mysterious master villain Nutthechio (Michel Piccoli), kept off screen for the bulk of the film but packing a punch when he arrives.
Does Melville really care? It seems not. The jewels are more a Raymond Chandleresque piece of plot distraction designed to hold our attention while the director dazzles with mood and attitude – tough men and alluring women moving into positions against each other, everyone trying to work out who’s been shooting their mouth off.
It seems obvious early on that it’s Silien but then Melville cuts away just as all is about to be revealed. And that’s the entire film, deferment served up with an attitude of downbeat sexiness.
In the second half the cops start turning up, and the audience starts being drip-fed little details. The explanation for what’s really going on comes right towards the end, and though it pays off handsomely Melville makes us wait for it, feasting us on camera moves and mood music, with minimalist acting and a doomy film noir ambience. If this were a streaming-era movie it would never get the go-ahead: it takes far too long to get going.
In this film judgment falls on mortals like rain from the gods. Fate, or destiny, is at work and people’s lives are mapped out by existential decision-making. At the end of the day a barman will shut up and go home. But crooks get a different sort of finish to their day.
This is Belmondo when his career was on fire. Courted by New Wave directors, he was also a smash in crowd-pleasers and ran the gamut from comedy to melodrama. Here, it’s Belmondo as he is most often remembered – collar up, hat down, slouching through his scenes world-weary and under-acting, the man’s man who drives an American car. Bad guy? Good guy? Belmondo’s performance is a gallic shrug, it leaves it all hanging, as Melville intends.
Throughout the potentially paradoxical proposition that men are loners but at their most effective and most dangerous when working together. Which is why a snitch is a danger – he threatens to debase the codes through which men put self-interest to one side.
There’s not much for the females going on here. Women are a complication, a prize, though Fabienne Dali stands out as Maurice’s squeeze. When Silien looks at a photograph of her that Maurice has displayed prominently in his room, he looks just a bit too appreciatively. There will be trouble.
The New York Times is right about the talkative nature of the film but really the talk, like the jewels, is a feint. Wait for the dénouement, when suddenly everything starts moving at speed, before coming to a judgment. I was not entirely convinced but I think maybe Melville’s misdirection had me looking in the wrong direction. I’ll need to watch it again.
Le Doulos – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
