As silent as the night
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | As silent as the night |
| Original title | Mélodie en sous-sol |
| Country of production | France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1963 |
| length | 118 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Henri Verneuil |
| script | Michel Audiard |
| production |
Jacques Bar Jacques Juranville |
| music | Michel Magne |
| camera | Louis Page |
| cut | Françoise Bonnot |
| occupation | |
| |
Silent like the night (original title: Mélodie en sous-sol , French . "Melody in the underground") is a French crime film in the Heist-Movie category by Henri Verneuil from 1963. It is about two gangsters who rob a casino in Cannes . The story is based on the novel The Big Grab , which Zekial Marko published in 1960 under the pseudonym "John Trinian". The leading roles are played by Jean Gabin and Alain Delon .
The film was shown in France from March 19, 1963. It has been in German cinemas since August 23, 1963.
action
Charles has just served a long prison sentence and is returning to his wife, who leads a petty-bourgeois life as a hairdresser and is thinking of selling their house and building a legal existence with this money. However, Charles is already planning the next coup: He wants to raid the Palm Beach casino in Cannes. Because his former partner does not want to participate in the project for health reasons, Charles hires his former inmate Francis as an accomplice. Francis is in his twenties, has no permanent job and lives into the day. Together they plan the robbery, which initially stipulates that Francis infiltrated the company of the casino in order to get easier access to the house's money room. Louis, Francis' older, law-abiding brother-in-law, who runs a car repair shop, is also hired. He should support the two as a driver.
Francis hooks up with Brigitte, a Swedish dancer from "Palm Beach", and can thus get behind the stage of the casino unobtrusively. Charles and Francis clash because Charles accuses Francis of carelessness and unreliability. Shortly before the coup, Louis got cold feet, he wanted to help but didn't want to get any of the booty because he didn't want to get used to wealth and get on the wrong track.
Ultimately, Charles and Francis get together and commit the robbery. Francis crawls through the ventilation shaft and can get through the elevator shaft into the vault, where he masked the casino employees with a submachine gun . He opens the door to Charles, who in a masked manner fills the money into two carrier bags. Both escape with the money.
The two travel bags with the money are initially hidden in a changing room near the beach. When they want to pick up the bags the next morning, they are surprised by the police who are investigating the swimming pool to which the locker room belongs. Because Francis believes that he cannot escape with the bags, he sinks them inconspicuously in the swimming pool. But the hiding place proves to be treacherous: the pockets open underwater and all the banknotes soon float to the surface. Whether Charles and Francis can escape the police without their prey remains open.
background
The black and white film was rotated to 35 mm and has an aspect ratio of 2.35: 1. There are two different versions of the cut , as the one for the American market was shortened to 103 minutes.
Jean Gabin and Alain Delon made a film together for the first time. In later years they appeared again together in The Clan of Sicilians (1969) and Endstation Schafott (1973).
The American film The Robbery of a Million in San Francisco (1965), in which Alain Delon again plays the lead role, is also based on a novel by Zekial Marko.
Reviews
"Exciting and cunning" is the verdict of the lexicon of international film and also emphasizes the film's "amusing closing punch". Bosley Crowther made a similar statement in the New York Times , while drawing parallels with the French film noir Rififi . Like the night, Der Spiegel is one of the kind of detective film "which is more on the nerves of the audience than on their ability to combine".
At prisma , the “lovingly observed contrast between the Parisian suburban milieu and the sophisticated luxury ambience of Cannes” is emphasized. Cinema considers the main actors Gabin and Delon to be "forbidden cool".
Awards
Silent As Night was one of the five films named Best Foreign Films by the National Board of Review for 1963. In the following year it was also honored as best foreign film with the Edgar Allan Poe Award and also at the 21st award of the Golden Globes it was honored as best foreign language film .
Web links
- Any Number Can Win in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- As silent as the night in the German dubbing files
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for silent like the night . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2006 (PDF; test number: 30 257 DVD).
- ↑ Internet Movie Database : Start Dates for Silent Like the Night (1963) .
- ↑ Internet Movie Database : Technical Specifications for Silent Like Night (1963) .
- ↑ a b prisma.de : Silent like the night (accessed on February 17, 2013).
- ↑ As silent as the night in the dictionary of international films .
- ↑ Crowther, Bosley : Any Number Can Win (1963) . In: The New York Times . As of October 9, 1963 (accessed February 17, 2013).
- ↑ As silent as the night (France) . In: Der Spiegel , issue 39/1963. As of September 25, 1963 (accessed February 17, 2013).
- ↑ cinema.de : Silent like the night (accessed on February 17, 2013).