Like a Bull in a China Shop

In 2016 the Cohen Media Group released My Journey Through French Cinema, written and directed by Bertrand Tavernier. It was not a traditional survey of French Cinema but a much more idiosyncratic and personal look at favorite films and directors from France in the eyes of Tavernier. In this way, it seemed inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1999 documentary on Italian cinema, My Voyage to Italy, which shined a light on forgotten and underrated movies that deserved re-evaluation. Tavernier certainly covered some landmarks of French cinema in his overview but he also devoted time to specific directors like Jacques Becker and Jean-Pierre Melville while including favorite film composers and cinematographers as well. Some of Tavernier’s choice were fascinating obscurities and others were grade-B genre films that were so stylish and well-made that they served as superior examples of their craft such as Edmond T. Greville’s Le Diable Souffle aka Woman of Evil (1947) and Gilles Grangier’s Hi-Jack Highway aka Gas-Oil (1955). I was especially intrigued by film clips from the crime thriller Ca Va Barder (1955), which was directed by blacklisted American director John Berry (it was his first credited feature in France) and starred expatriate American actor Eddie Constantine as two-fisted itinerant adventurer Johnny Jordan. His rough and tumble character is as disruptive as a bull in a china shop.

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Cosa Nostra Bromance

Professional hit men Schaft (Henry Silva, left) and Phil (Jack Klugman) converge on their target in the Eurocrime cult favorite, Hail, Mafia (1965), directed by Raoul Levy.

Do hit men have a code of ethics? It might seem like a bit of an oxymoron to have hit men and ethics in the same sentence but in most movies about organized crime like The Godfather, The Public Enemy or Scarface, there does seem to be some sort of moral code observed among the rank and file of thugdom, regardless of how hypocritical it may seem. Rarely though do we see crime thrillers where hit men have philosophical discussions about their work and Hail, Mafia (1965) is not only fascinating for this reason but it’s also a criminally overlooked little B-movie. Taut, suspenseful, oddly funny at times and a road movie of sorts, the European produced movie stars Henry Silva and Jack Klugman as ill-matched assassins on a journey to silence their target, an expatriate American (Eddie Constantine) living in France.

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Jess Franco’s Attack of the Robots

Imagine a science-fiction influenced spy thriller about humanoid assassins directed by Jess Franco with a screenplay adaptation by Jean-Claude Carrière (a frequent collaborator with Luis Bunuel), a cool jazz score by Paul Misraki (Alphaville, Le Doulos, Les Cousins) and an international cast featuring Eddie Constantine, Fernando Rey and Francoise Brion. It sounds like a film buff’s fever dream but it actually exists. Released in 1966 during the height of the James Bond craze, Cartes sur table aka Attack of the Robots is a stylish and amusing entertainment that takes a standard world domination-by-madman scenario and infuses it with a cheeky sense of humor. The film will come as a surprise to those who only associate Jess Franco with Eurotrash favorites like 99 Women (1969), Vampyros Lesbos (1971) and Wanda, the Wicked Warden (1977).

Eddie Constantine as Interpol agent Al Pereira in Jess Franco’s Cartes sur table (aka Attack of the Robots, 1966).

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