Borsalino (1970)

Borsalino movie storyline. In 1930, in Marseille, a gangster named Siffredi is released from prison and searches for his former girlfriend, Lola. He finds her with Capella, another gangster. The two men fight over her but become friendly and form a partnership, fixing horseraces and prizefights.

They are contacted by Rinaldi, a lawyer who works for Marello and Poli, the two crime bosses who control all the organized crime in Marseille. Rinaldi suggests that Siffredi and Capella should seize control of Marseille’s fish market and take it away from Marello. They succeed but they become too ambitious and try to take control of the meat market which is controlled by Poli. He tries to have Capella and Siffredi killed but they succeed in killing him instead. Rinaldi is killed by another gangster named The Dancer.

Capella and Siffredi establish themselves as the new bosses of Marseille’s underworld. Capella decides to leave Marseille but is killed by an assassin. Siffredi then decides to leave Marseille himself.

Borsalino is a 1970 French gangster film directed by Jacques Deray and starring Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Catherine Rouvel. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.[4] In 2009 Empire magazine named it #19 in a poll of “The 20 Greatest Gangster Movies You’ve Never Seen… Probably”. A sequel, Borsalino & Co., was released in 1974 with Alain Delon in the leading role. The film is based on real life gangsters Paul Carbone and François Spirito, who collaborated with Nazi Germany during the occupation of France in World War Two (though this is not mentioned in the film).

It was being shown on BBC One in the United Kingdom on August 31, 1997 when it was interrupted at 1:45am by BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis to bring the first news report that Diana, Princess of Wales had been involved in a car crash in Paris, which ultimately claimed her life. (With cruel irony, the film was in the middle of a scene that depicted a funeral.) The film would be interrupted one more time in the following hour for another update about the crash.

Directed by: Jacques Deray
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Catherine Rouvel, Françoise Christophe, Corinne Marchand, Laura Adani, Nicole Calfan, Hélène Rémy, Odette Piquet
Screenplay by: Jean-Claude Carrière, Jean Cau
Cinematography by: Jean-Jacques Tarbès
Film Editing by: Paul Cayatte
Costume Design by: Jacques Fonteray
Set Decoration by: Robert Christidès
Art Direction by: François de Lamothe
Music by. Claude Bolling
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: May 25, 1970