The Sicilian Clan [Le Clan des Siciliens] **** (1969, Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick) – Classic Movie Review 2823

Co-writer/ director Henri Verneuil’s very satisfactory and entertaining plot-driven 1969 gangster action thriller The Sicilian Clan [Le Clan des Siciliens] is given a classy lift by a top-drawer French and Italian cast. The film is slick and glossy, a little bit too slick and glossy, but still persuasively detailed, suspenseful and exciting.

Jean Gabin plays Vittorio Manalese, the silky, canny, ruthless old mob boss of The Sicilian Clan who agrees to mastermind the plan of a young, greedy, escaped criminal called Roger Sartet (Alain Delon) to snatch precious gems after he has proposed the elaborate diamond heist following a spell in prison with a security system installer, who bit by bit supplied him with details of the system protecting the gems.

Alain Delon stars as the ambitious but impetuous and careless career criminal Roger Sartet, who escapes from custody in a police van in Paris, with the help of members of the Manalese family, a small, well-organised Sicilian Mafia clan consisting of the patriarch Vittorio, his two sons and his son-in-law. Sartet has killed two cops in cold blood during his capture, but when in jail, got to know a technician involved in installing the electronic security burglar alarm system at the Villa Borghese art gallery exhibition centre in Rome, where shortly a show of priceless jewels is to take place.

The Manalese family hide Sartet in a safe house, where he meets Vittorio, and talks him into getting involved in the robbery, and is looked after by the flirtatious Jeanne (Irina Demick), the French wife of Vittorio’s elder son, Aldo. In Rome, Vittorio welcomes his old buddy, New York Mafioso Tony Nicosia, but when they check out the exhibition, they find too much additional security. So Nicosia comes up with a daring alternative plan to steal the jewels en route to being shown in New York. He sends over alcoholic ex-pilot Jack as part of his plan to hijack the jet taking the jewels to America.

Lino Ventura plays Paris police Commissaire Le Goff, the doggedly determined police commissioner on their trail, all the while closing in on them. [Ventura was Italian born but moved to Paris as a kid and became one of France’s most beloved character stars from the 1950s to the 1980s.]

All three stars are cast to archetype, and they are virtually perfect in the roles, fitting them like well-used, expensive leather gloves. They really are something, busy attracting attention in their own quiet, fairly subtle ways. They are something special, class acts. But Irina Demick has a much less rewarding time as Jeanne Manalese, the French wife of Vittorio’s elder son Aldo, who is trying to seduce Delon’s character. Eventually, Jeanne sunbathes nude in front of Sartet and he responds by starting to make love, but crucially they are caught by Vittorio’s six-year-old grandson Roberto. Indeed Demick was unhappy with her role, but she was the mistress of 20th Century-Fox boss Darryl F Zanuck, so Verneuil was persuaded to rewrite the hijacking scene so that Demick’s character takes part.

At 122 minutes, the film is long and complicated, but it is mostly quite exciting and occasionally thrilling. Verneuil, José Giovanni and Pierre Pelegri carve out a good, solid screenplay from the novel by Auguste Le Breton.

Verneuil directs efficiently, but anonymously, whereas a great director (Jean-Pierre Melville for instance) could have turned it into a classic. As always, Henri Decaë’s Eastmancolor and 35 mm Panavision cinematography and Ennio Morricone’s score are essential adornments to the movie, both quintessentially late Sixties European, and entertaining in themselves. They draw attention to themselves, but then it is that kind of movie, style above reality or content. It still has substance though, with a strong, well-plotted story and some bravura extended suspense sequences which are more persuasive than the disaster-movie style gangster attack on the plane bound for New York, but hijacked to land on an unfinished highway. The ending is a tad stagey and perhaps lacks credibility, though it is still satisfying and archetypal.

Unfortunately, 20th Century-Fox prepared an English-language international version, which lacks character and is soulless, though the film was shot simultaneously in French, English and Italian with the same cast. So seek out the original French version of the movie.

Also in the cast are Amedeo Nazzari, Sydney Chaplin, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Yves Brainville, Gérard Buhr, Raoul Delfosse, Jacques Duby, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Danielle Volle, Marc Porel, André Pousse and André Thorent.

The film is based on a novel, the second in a series of books by Auguste Le Breton who wrote Rififi. Verneuil wrote a screenplay with Pierre Pelegri and then José Giovanni, with the main roles tailored for Gabin and Delon. He later decided to cast as the cop Ventura, whose first film was Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954) starring Gabin. He bought the film rights and signed a deal with 20th Century-Fox.

The Sicilian Clan [Le Clan des Siciliens] [Il Clan dei Siciliani] is directed by Henri Verneuil, runs 122 minutes, is made by Les Films du Siècle and Fox Europa, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Henri Verneuil (adaptation), José Giovanni (adaptation and dialogue) and Pierre Pelegri (adaptation), based on the novel by Auguste Le Breton, is shot in Eastmancolor and 35 mm Panavision by Henri Decaë, is produced by Jacques-Eric Strauss, is scored by Ennio Morricone and is designed by Jacques Saulnier.

The cast are Jean Gabin as Vittorio Manalese, Alain Delon as Roger Sartet, Lino Ventura as Commissaire Le Goff, Irina Demick as Jeanne Manalese, Elisa Cegani as Maria Manalese, Yves Lefebvre as Aldo Manalese, Marc Porel as Sergio Manalese, Philippe Baronnet as Luigi, Karen Blanguernon as Theresa, César Chauveau as Roberto, Amedeo Nazzari as Tony Nicosia, Sydney Chaplin as Jack, Danielle Volle as Monique Sartet, André Pousse as Malik, Edward Meeks as the airline captain, Sally Nesbitt as Mrs Evans, Christian de Tillière as electrician Jean-Marie Ballard, Yves Brainville as examining magistrate, and Bernard Musson as gendarme at Sartet’s transfer.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2823

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