The Big Swag

Louis Bourdin works for the Paris transport authority by day and writes novels by night. What he writes is crime fiction, and he is more than fond of the form. One day he writes a thriller set in the world of the authority he works for, and the publishers turn it down. The book ends up in the hands of a gang of criminals. From that point the story changes direction. The film runs the meeting of an amateur’s invention with the real thing somewhere between comedy and thriller. Fiction getting away from its own author is the real idea. Bourvil and Paul Meurisse appear in Alex Joffé’s hundred and five minute French film, completed in 1965.