Alain Delon meticulously melds into his role as the elusive Jef Costello, hitman extraordinaire who is in between murdering and the next victim is to be the manager of Martey's nightclub. In antediluvian fashion, Delon pulls up his proverbial collar and runs a couple of fingers across his snap-brim fedora which would be a detail copied from the Stetson clad director.
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Martey hasn't exactly got the time to question the white-gloved killer before being outgunned with whiplash fervour with a velocity that you would probably only be privy to while watching an early Leone Western.
Melville drew an irrefutable inspiration from 1950's The Asphalt Jungle and that is evident in the line- up scene of the gang of criminal suspects
Le Samurai is favoured by film theorists including your humble narrator, as Melville's magnum opus. Initially this film garnered little recognition and mercury clearly in retrograde's constant with all the mitigating circumstances of the production. Including the fact that the director's own studio was burnt down in a vicious fire smack dab in the middle of production.
Lesser men would have walked away from the project, but not the indomitable Mr M.
And pleased he did, because if there were ever a heaven's match - Delon and Melville here in 1967 would be guilty of charge