The Thief of Paris

Louis Malle made this with Belmondo and built theft not as adventure but as a programme of revenge. The source is Georges Darien's novel of the same name, adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière and Malle. It is set in Paris around 1900. Georges Randal is raised by a wealthy uncle who has spent his inheritance. He wants to marry his cousin Charlotte; the uncle gives her to a rich neighbour instead. Georges steals the family jewels in revenge. He enjoys it enough to continue, and soon acquires a partner: a swindling priest, the abbé Félix La Margelle. After a while the stealing stops being revenge and becomes the only available way of living; he continues not because he wants what he takes but because he can do nothing else. The structure carries the same idea: the plot does not advance, it repeats. A house, a safe, an escape, then again. The buoyancy Belmondo usually brings is deliberately absent; his performance here is closed and distant. Geneviève Bujold, Marie Dubois and Julien Guiomar fill out the cast. Who it is for: viewers who like French crime films with period design and a calm, ironic register. Who it is not for: anyone expecting suspense. There is almost no sense of risk in the robberies, and that is on purpose.