Le Samouraï

Le Samouraï (French pronunciation: [lə sa.mu.ʁa.i]; lit. 'The Samurai') is a 1967 neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and starring Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier. A Franco-Italian production, it depicts the intersecting paths of a professional hitman (Delon) trying to find out who hired him for a job and then tried to have him killed, and the Parisian commissaire (Périer) trying to catch him.

Le Samouraï
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jean-Pierre Melville
Screenplay by	Jean-Pierre Melville Georges Pellegrin
Produced by	Raymond Borderie Eugène Lépicier
Starring	Alain Delon François Périer Nathalie Delon Cathy Rosier
Cinematography	Henri Decaë
Edited by	Monique Bonnot Yolande Maurette
Music by	François de Roubaix
Production companies	Filmel Compagnie Industrielle et Commerciale Cinématographique (CICC) Fida Cinematografica T.C. Productions
Distributed by	S.N. Prodis (France) Fida Cinematografica (Italy)
Release date	25 October 1967 (1967-10-25)
Running time	105 minutes
Countries	France Italy
Language	French
Box office	1.9 million admissions (France) $218,495 (US re-release)

The film was released on 25 October 1967, and it sold over 1.9 million tickets in France. It received positive reviews, with particular praise given to Melville's screenwriting and atmospheric direction, and Delon's performance. An English-dubbed version of the film was released in the U.S. in 1972 as The Godson.

Plot

Impassive hitman Jef Costello lives in a spartan single-room Paris apartment and keeps a small bird in a cage as a pet. His methodical modus operandi involves creating airtight alibis, including ones provided by his lover, Jane. After carrying out a contract killing on Martey, a nightclub owner, Jef is very clearly seen leaving the scene by the club's piano player, Valérie, and glimpsed by several other witnesses. The police bring Jef and other suspects in for a lineup, but the witnesses, including Valerie, fail to positively identify him.

Jef is released, but the commissaire suspects him and has him followed. Jef loses the tail and goes to collect his fee for the hit. Instead of paying him, the man he meets tries to kill him, shooting him in the arm. Jef realizes his unknown employers now view him as a liability because he is suspected in Martey's murder. After treating his wound, Jef returns to the nightclub. While he is out, two police officers bug his room, agitating the bird in its cage.

After the nightclub closes, Jef has Valérie take him to her home, reasoning that she did not identify him as the killer because his employer had told her not to. He asks her who hired him, and she tells him to call her in two hours. Meanwhile, the police search Jane's apartment and offer to leave her alone if she recants her alibi for Jef. She flatly rejects the offer.

Back at his apartment, Jef notices some loose feathers scattered around his bird's cage and suspects it was agitated by an intrusion. He finds the police bug and deactivates it, and then goes to a public phone to call Valérie, but she does not answer. When he returns home, he is ambushed by the man who shot him. Holding Jef at gunpoint, the man offers a fresh start. He pays Jef for the hit on Martey, as well as for an upcoming one. Jef overpowers the man and forces him to disclose the identity of his boss: Olivier Rey.

Dozens of undercover police attempt to tail Jef in the Paris Métro, but he evades them. He visits Jane and assures her everything will work out, then drives to Rey's house, which is also where Valérie lives, though she is not home. Jef kills Rey and returns to the nightclub, this time making no attempt to avoid being seen. He checks his hat, but leaves his hat-check ticket on the counter, and puts on white gloves, which he wears when carrying out his hits, in full view of everyone. He approaches the stage where Valérie is performing. She quietly advises him to leave, but he points his gun at her. Strangely unafraid, she asks him why he is doing this, and he responds he was paid to do so. Suddenly, Jef is shot four times by policemen who had been waiting for him. When the Commissaire inspects Jef's gun, however, he discovers it was not loaded.

Cast

• Alain Delon as Jef Costello
• François Périer as the Commissaire
• Nathalie Delon as Jane Lagrange, Jef and Wiener's girlfriend
• Cathy Rosier (credited as Caty Rosier) as Valérie, the pianist at Martey's
• Jacques Leroy as "The Man on the Bridge", a hitman working for Rey
• Michel Boisrond as Wiener, Jane's wealthy boyfriend
• Robert Favart as the bartender at Martey's, who is a witness at the lineup
• Jean-Pierre Posier as Olivier Rey, who has Martey killed
• Catherine Jourdan as the hatcheck girl at Martey's, who is a witness at the lineup
• Roger Fradet as a police inspector who works for the Commissaire
• Carlo Nell as a police inspector who works for the Commissaire
• Robert Rondo as a police inspector who works for the Commissaire
• André Salgues as the man in the garage who gives Jef his contracts
• André Thorent as the policeman disguised as a taxi driver who follows Jef when he is released from custody
• Jacques Deschamps as the policeman at the microphone during the lineup
• Georges Casati as Ange Séraphin Damolini, the first suspect in the lineup
• Jack Léonard as Juan Garcia, the second suspect in the lineup
• Pierre Vaudier as the policeman who bugs Jef's apartment
• Maurice Magalon as the partner of the policeman who bugs Jef's apartment
• Gaston Meunier as the head waiter at Martey's, who is a witness at the lineup
• Jean Gold as a customer at Martey's who is a witness at the lineup
• Georges Billy as a customer at Martey's who is a witness at the lineup
• Ari Aricardi as a poker player
• Guy Bonnafoux as a poker player
• Humberto Catalano as a police inspector
• Carl Lechner as a suspect who looks very similar to Jef
• Maria Maneva as "the girl with chewing gum" who follows Jef in the subway

Production

Melville wrote the film for Delon. It was the first film for Delon's wife, Nathalie. He filed for divorce after the film wrapped, but they terminated the divorce proceedings a few days later, though they separated in June 1968 and their divorce became official in February 1969, with Nathalie being granted custody of their son, Anthony. François Périer, who played the Commissaire, was a comedian cast against type.

Studios Jenner, Melville's private film studio, was destroyed by a fire on June 29, 1967, while Le Samouraï was in production. Melville, who termed the blaze "suspicious", finished the shoot at another studio.

Alternative ending

In an interview with Rui Nogueira, Melville said he originally filmed Jef Costello meeting his death with a picture-perfect grin, but he modified the scene after discovering Delon had a smiling death scene in another of his films. Production stills of the smiling death exist.

Release and reception

Box office

Le Samouraï was released in France on 25 October 1967. It sold over 1.9 million tickets in France, and over 797,011 tickets in Spain. First released in theaters in the United States in 1972, it grossed $39,481 from a 1997 re-release.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 100% approval rating based on 38 reviews, and an average score of 8.6/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Le Samouraï makes the most of its spare aesthetic, using stylish – and influential – direction, solid performances, and thick atmosphere to weave an absorbing story."

A 1967 review in Variety called the film "a curious hybrid" that "appears a bit too solemn to inject all the suspense, action and characterization [Melville] seeks", and said it "almost seems to be an American film dubbed into French" and "could be cut a bit".

Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the original film "immaculate", but criticized the dubbing of the 1972 version released in the U.S. as The Godson as "disorienting" and "dreadful".

In a 1997 review of the film that later appeared in his first The Great Movies collection of essays, Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, writing: "Like a painter or a musician, a filmmaker can suggest complete mastery with just a few strokes. Jean-Pierre Melville involves us in the spell of Le Samourai (1967) before a word is spoken. He does it with light: a cold light, like dawn on an ugly day. And color: grays and blues. And actions that speak in place of words."

In 2010, the film was ranked No. 39 on Empire's list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema".

Writing in Le Figaro of the Delons' performances after Nathalie's death in 2021, Bertrand Guyard noted that the husband and wife are both nearly silent in the film, but "their gazes, fraught with meaning, are enough to make the camera quiver", and the director was able to create from their portrayals "a mythical couple of the seventh art."

Influence and legacy

The film has influenced numerous other works and directors:

• Walter Hill's 1978 film The Driver features a similar dynamic between a reluctant female witness and a getaway driver.
• John Woo's 1989 film The Killer was heavily influenced by the plot of Le Samouraï, with the pianist replaced by a singer. Chow Yun-fat's character Jeffrey Chow (the international character name for Ah Jong) was inspired by Alain Delon's similarly named character Jef Costello. Woo acknowledged the influence by writing a short essay on Le Samouraï and Melville's techniques for the film's Criterion Collection DVD release.
• Jim Jarmusch paid homage to Le Samouraï with the 1999 crime-drama Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, starring Forest Whitaker as a meditative, loner assassin who lives by the bushido code. Just as Costello has a huge ring of keys that enables him to steal any Citroën DS, the hitman Ghost Dog has an electronic "key" to break into luxury cars.
• Pang Ho-Cheung's 2001 crime-and-filmmaking comedy You Shoot, I Shoot features Eric Kot as a hitman who idolizes Alain Delon's Jef Costello, dressing like the character and speaking to Costello via a Le Samouraï poster in his apartment.
• Johnnie To's 2009 film Vengeance is an homage to Melville's gangster films, and the main character is a retired assassin whose last name is Costello. To offered the role to Alain Delon, who turned it down.
• Anton Corbijn's 2010 film The American stars George Clooney as an assassin, who bears a resemblance to Costello, hiding in a small Italian village.
• Nicolas Winding Refn's 2011 film Drive stars Ryan Gosling as a nameless protagonist who shares key characteristics with Costello.
• Madonna's 2012 song "Beautiful Killer" is an homage to Alain Delon and alludes to his role in Le Samouraï with the lines: "You are a beautiful killer / I like your silhouette when you stand on the streets / Like a samurai you can handle the heat / Makes me wanna pray for a haunted man."
• Adilkhan Yerzhanov's 2020 film Yellow Cat features a protagonist who quotes and performs scenes from Le Samouraï throughout the film as a major character trait.
• David Fincher's 2023 film The Killer was compared to Le Samouraï in contemporaneous reviews.

See also

• List of films featuring surveillance
• List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Further reading

• Nogueira, Rui (ed.). 1971. Melville on Melville. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-46757-X (hardbound), ISBN 0-670-01926-7 (paperbound)
• Palmer, Tim. 2006. Le Samouraï In Phil Powrie (ed.), The Cinema of France. London: Wallflower Press. ISBN 1-904764-47-9 (hardbound), ISBN 1-904764-46-0 (paperbound)
• Vincendeau, Ginette. 2003. Jean-Pierre Melville : 'an American in Paris'. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 0-85170-950-8 (hardbound), ISBN 0-85170-949-4 (paperback)

External links

• Le Samouraï at IMDb
• Le Samouraï at AllMovie
• Le Samouraï: Death in White Gloves an essay by David Thomson at the Criterion Collection