Crooks in Clover

A French crime comedy set in Paris. Fernand is retired from the lathe and living quietly. A dying old friend takes a promise from him: he will look after his daughter and put his affairs in order. Fernand agrees. But his friend's affairs are not clean: nightclubs, gambling houses and a set of partners. The partners want the girl's share and do not know who Fernand is. That he once belonged to that world, and has not been forgotten, becomes clear slowly. The humour is in the dialogue. The man who wrote it is held to be a master of French slang; the lines are exaggerated and ornate, and even the threats are delivered in a literary register. The best known passage is in a kitchen. Several men sit at a table tasting whatever drink they find, and after a while the conversation goes somewhere else entirely. The scene was written short and the actors extended it. Lino Ventura plays Fernand. Bernard Blier, Francis Blanche and Jean Lefebvre are in the cast. Georges Lautner directed. The film became a cult in France and its lines passed into everyday speech. Exactly right for anyone who likes French crime comedy and films built on dialogue. For a viewer watching with subtitles, most of the slang is lost in translation.