This movie is included in (and apparently gives its English name to) a DVD pack called "Action Man Collection". The picture quality is fine, but the sound quality is not: there is a lot of background hiss, the dubbing is off-synch, and at one point you can hear dialogue from two different scenes mixed up together (luckily, this only lasts a few seconds). Because of the poor dubbing, it's hard to fully judge the actors' performances, though it cannot be denied that Jean Gabin still had a commanding presence, and Margaret Lee's seemingly thankless role grows in significance until it becomes the catalyst for the downbeat "crime does not pay" ending. The caper itself is pretty unconvincing (don't they check surprise replacements in security guards?). All in all, middle-of-the-road stuff. **1/2 out of 4.

Jean Gabin has three or four good businesses, he's married to beautiful authoress Suzanne Fion, he gets to slap around the waiter who tries to turn his restaurant into a cocaine pitch and he's bored. He plans a robbery of the bank across from his bar -- they've got a half-billion-franc payroll every month, like clockwork -- but doesn't really expect to do anything about it until his old buddy, Robert Stack shows up out of nowhere.

The movie has a beautiful set-piece robbery, Gabin slaps around several people and there is plenty of sadism and treachery, yet I found the movie to be good, but not the great fun I had expected. Perhaps I had gone in expecting too much, but Gabin is too old to play the virile action hero, so he's the brains of the operation, and Stack is the brawn. And Stack is never brutal or commanding or anything more than Gabin's efficient sidekick, his loyal dog, who has been looking for Gabin since he disappeared from Indo-China in 1954.

It's understandable, because it's Gabin, but it means that there's little depth to it. It's just a well-run caper film running along its clockwork mechanisms. that's a lot of fun, but nothing more.

Nice movie, great acting from all the actors involved, good plot,