Le Samouraï (1967)

Le Samouraï movie storyline. Jef Costello, a Paris-based hit man who is meticulous in his work, is preparing for his latest job, he not knowing his client in working through an intermediary. That preparation includes setting airtight alibis, one with his girlfriend Jane Lagrange, and scoping out his entry and escape from where the hit is to take place, the office at Martey’s nightclub – the target Martey himself – without anyone really noticing him.

Although he is able to carry out the hit, it is not as clean as he would have wanted. In the police rounding up several hundred suspects in the immediate hours following the hit, Jef is surprised by the outcome of his questioning, he being released against certain odds working against him. Although the statements by the witnesses at the club who could have seen him being inconclusive as to him being the murderer, the police commissioner is still working on the high probability that Jef is the man for who they are looking, and as a result places much of his resources in placing Jef under secret surveillance.

In Jef concluding the transaction with the client through the intermediary, things again do not go according to what Jef would have expected or wanted. As such, Jef believes he has to find out the identity of the client and/or his/her reason for wanting Martey dead, all while eluding the police, who he knows is pursuing him.

Le Samouraï is a 1967 neo-noir crime thriller film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and starring Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, and Cathy Rosier. A Franco-Italian production, it depicts the intersecting paths of a professional hitman (Alain Delon) trying to find out who hired him for a job and then tried to have him killed, and the Parisian commissaire (François Périer) trying to catch him.

The film was released on 25 October 1967, and it sold over 1.9 million tickets in France. It received positive reviews, with particular praise given to Melville’s screenwriting and atmospheric direction, and Delon’s performance. An English-dubbed version of the film was released in the U.S. in 1972 as The Godson, a title selected to capitalize on the recent success of The Godfather.

The Godson

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Melville
Starring: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier, Jacques Leroy, Michel Boisrond, Robert Favart, Jean-Pierre Posier, Catherine Jourdan, Roger Fradet, Carlo Nell, Robert Rondo
Screenplay by: Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Pellegrin
Production Design by: François de Lamothe
Cinematography by: Henri Decaë
Film Editing by: Monique Bonnot, Yolande Maurette
Set Decoration by: François de Lamothe
Art Direction by: André Boumedil
Music by: François de Roubaix
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: S.N. Prodis (France), Fida Cinematografica (Italy)
Release Date: October 25, 1967