Alain Delon. With longer hair and a hat, Delon looks like the forerunner of Johnny Depp in this 1975 film, also known as Le Gitan. He plays French gypsy, Hugh Sennart, a robber wanted by the police. He steals from the state because he has nothing but contempt for the system because of the way his people are forced to live. These conditions are shown realistically and are sad indeed.Hugo's story intersects with that a jewel thief, Yan Kuq (Paul Meurisse], who robs from the rich. Kuq's wife fell from their balcony. The police suspect murder, though that is not the case. However, it happened right after a burglary, which is very suspicious.The Gypsy is doing one more heist when he runs into Yan. Here's where we learn what both men are made of, and whether or not there is honor among thieves.Good noirish film with an excellent performance by Delon and also by Paul Maurisse and Annie Girardot. It is almost two films in one. I felt the stronger story is the one that shows the gypsy conditions. Someone described Delon's expressions as "eloquent" - yes, they were. He doesn't have a huge amount of dialogue, which he doesn't in many films, so he is a master of expression.Not the best work from the director Jose Giovanni, but it's still good.

I found this movie to be low-key and subtle. There are three parallel story streams led by Delon as the gypsy Hugo Sennart, Meurisse as Yan Kuq the fence and safe cracker, and Bozzuffi as the cop whose task it is to bring them in. The film is character driven, but interest in the characters grows while watching the film as opposed to movies in which the characters demand attention from the beginning. It is a story primarily about men. These are hard people whether Gypsy, cop, or thief, and any sentimentality is tempered with cold reality. Several scenes with Alain Delon and young boys support the growing understanding that Sennart (Delon)is running out of time and add to the sense of underlying melancholy. The scene with Delon watching the flight of flamingos is something I will never forget or grow tired of watching. I would describe this movie as beautiful - subdued - with strong emotional undercurrents.

Another film directed and adapted by the very same person: Jose Giovanni, as he already did for LA SCOUMOUNE, three years earlier. This movie starring Alain Delon is rather well made, with convincing performances, especially Annie Girardot as a supporting character. The underworld is of course shown in a way different as it is now. A lost atmosphere, with much nostalgia. I love this. I would point out that the Paul Meurisse and Marcel Bozzufi's characters are here the total opposite as they were in LE DEUXIEME Soufflé, also adapted from Giovanni and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. In this movie, the Melville's one, Meurisse was the cop and Bozziffi the Hood. Here, Bozzuffi is the cop and Meurisse the gangster. A film that makes you think of the gypsies way of life and the behavior that the french government shows against this community. The way the authorities ostracize those people. It may be revolting.

This Jose Giovanni effort gives you the strange feeling you are watching two different movies in one:-The first one is a very conventional gangsters- on- the- lam movie ,with one of the weakest plots Giovanni ever wrote.-The second one is by far the most interesting,when it shows the gypsy condition,forced to live on the garbage dumps,perpetual outcasts of a society that will never accept them.Delon's looks are eloquent and could have been successful,had he been given adequate support:only the scenes when he meets his people are worthwhile.The cast is heterogeneous to a fault gathering actors from the forties/fifties (Paul "diaboliques" Meurisse who is here like a ghost from the past),trendy current ones (Delon,and Annie Girardot in an inept part which comes at the most awkward moment) and future glories of the eighties/the present like Bernard Giraudeau (stupidly cast as a young cop and the former lover of a gangster's wife).The seventies were not a good time for Giovanni,with the exception of "deux hommes dans la ville":his best works remain his early efforts "la loi du survivant" (1967) ,"le rapace" (1968) and "dernier domicile connu" (1969)