Un nommé La Rocca (1961)
Directed by Jean Becker

Film Review

Jean Becker chooses for his first film the popular (at the time) gangster genre, taking the scenario from a novel by José Giovanni, L'excommunié.   Charismatic and very popular French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo is cast as the central character, La Rocca, the kind of role that Belmondo is well-suited to - the laconic, macho gangster-type, remote yet strangely loveable.

Overall, it is Becker's direction that stands up better than Giovanni's storyline.  Whilst the direction and photography is fresh and quite hard-edged in places, the plot is, on the whole, unstructured, illogical, and lacking in direction.  The character of La Rocca is poorly explored and appears full of contradictions and anomalies.  The story seems to rely on coincidence (primarily to bring Xavier and Robert together) but the way by which this coincidence is achieved appears ludicrously contrived.  In short, this is quite a good film of what appears to be a mediocre novel.

Bizarrely, Giovanni himself made a subsequent film of the same novel ten years later, La Scoumoune , again with Belmondo in the lead role.  It is interesting to see how much the two films differ, and it is largely a matter of personal taste as to which is the better film.

One weakness with Becker's film is the ending, which seems weak and unfinished.  At least Giovanni's film has a tidier resolution (and that magnificent final shot of Belmondo slipping away into the shadows).  All that Becker's film has to offer in its last few moments is a funeral and a broken friendship - very New Wave, but somehow lacking in integrity.

Film Synopsis

Robert La Rocca discovers that his friend, Xavier, has been arrested after having been implicated in a crime by a rival gangster boss. His revenge is short-lived when he himself is subsequently arrested after a bar fracas and sent to the same prison as Xavier.  Leaving prison a short while later, the two men decide to start a new life, far from their earlier gangster lives.  Unfortunately, Xavier's final act of revenge backfires…