The Army of Shadows [L’Armée des Ombres] ***** (1969, Lino Ventura, Simone Signoret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Meurisse) – Classic Movie Review 3799

Writer-producer-director Jean-Pierre Melville pays tribute to the French Resistance he worked for in World War Two with this extremely engrossing, powerful and challenging 1969 epic account of underground resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied France, set in 1942.

Lino Ventura stars as civil engineer Philippe Gerbier, one of the chiefs of the French Resistance, who is betrayed by a traitor and interned in a camp. But he escapes and joins his network at Marseilles, where he ensures the traitor is executed. It also stars Simone Signoret, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Paul Meurisse, Paul Crauchet, Claude Mann, Christian Barbier and Serge Reggiani.

Melville brings his special expertise to the work of creating the dark mood and atmosphere of film noir to realise a story of almost unbearable suspense and tragedy and to heighten the cinematic effect of a horrific life-or-death real-life situation.

The superlative cast is seen on their very best form, personifying and bringing to vivid life the French Resistance characters, who are shown like they are the brave and world-weary characters in classical Greek tragic drama, driven by fate to their terrible destinies. Melville also provides the screenplay, and adapts the novel by Joseph Kessel, who was also in the Resistance.

Melville’s commanding masterwork has a long running time of 143 minutes but it is extraordinarily gripping throughout.

While working for the French Resistance, Jean-Pierre Grumbach adopted the nom de guerre Melville as a tribute to his favourite American author Herman Melville, keeping it as his nom de plume work name after the war.

Melville’s 13 films are: Le Silence de la mer, Les enfants terribles, Quand tu liras cette lettre…, Bob le flambeur, Two Men in Manhattan, Léon Morin, Priest , Le Doulos, Magnet of Doom, Le deuxième souffle, Le Samouraï, The Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge and Un flic.

http://derekwinnert.com/un-flic-dirty-money-1972-alain-delon-catherine-deneuve-richard-crenna/

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3799

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