The Magnificent Tramp

Archimède is a tramp. He does not want to spend the winter in the street; he intends to spend it in prison, where there is a bed, food and heat. But getting in turns out to be harder than he thought. He breaks windows, starts fights, provokes the police, and every time he is either let go or fined. Nobody takes him seriously. Meanwhile he strikes up friendships in the town and starts meddling in their affairs. How the winter will go stays open to the end. Gilles Grangier directs, with Jean Gabin as Archimède, a performance that won him best actor at Berlin in 1959. Seventy-nine minutes. The dialogue is by Michel Audiard. One of Gabin's favourite kinds of man: beaten and unbowed.