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La Scoumoune

La Scoumoune

Movie · 1972 · 5 people

José Giovanni wrote and directed the French-Italian crime film La Scoumoune in 1972. Shot in French and running about one hundred and one minutes, it sits between the crime picture, the prison film and the drama. Jean-Paul Belmondo leads the cast, with Claudia Cardinale and Michel Constantin in the other main roles. The title is a French word for bad luck or the evil eye.

The story comes from Giovanni's own novel L'Excommunié, published in Gallimard's Série noire in 1958 and already filmed once before: in 1961 Jean Becker adapted the same book as Un nommé La Rocca, again with Belmondo in the lead. That makes La Scoumoune the second screen version of the story and a return by Belmondo to the same character after more than a decade. In Germany it was known as Der Mann aus Marseille, and in Spanish-speaking countries as El clan de los marselleses.

Besides Belmondo, Cardinale and Constantin, the cast includes Andréa Ferréol, Jean-Claude Michel, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Zardi, Michel Peyrelon and Philippe Brizard. The film opened in Germany on 8 March 1973, and its video releases there circulated as Der Einzelgänger and Schlag auf Schlag.

DirectorJosé Giovanni

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Cast

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Jean-Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Belmondo Film actor · died at 88 Claudia Cardinale Claudia Cardinale Actor · died at 87 Dominique Zardi Actor · died at 79 Michel Peyrelon Michel Peyrelon Actor · died at 66 Philippe Brizard Actor · died at 87

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Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

What makes La Scoumoune interesting is that José Giovanni brings his own novel to the screen for the second time, returning to the material as writer-director after Jean Becker's 1961 version, Un nommé La Rocca. Moving between crime picture, prison film and drama, it never fully commits to any one of them, which can leave a slightly scattered impression. In return, Belmondo coming back to the same character more than a decade later adds a layer of maturity to the performance. The trio he forms with Claudia Cardinale and Michel Constantin is the film's centre of gravity. At just over a hundred minutes it is reasonably lean; still, watching the two adaptations back to back may teach you more than this one does on its own.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

Belmondo, crime and prison all in one: on paper, exactly my kind of film. At around a hundred minutes it doesn't overstay its welcome, which helps. Still, it's from 1972; if you're used to today's speed, the pace can feel slow in places, and the drama side sometimes gets ahead of the tension. With Belmondo on screen it's hard to get bored, but you'll need some patience.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Seeing Jean-Paul Belmondo and Claudia Cardinale in the same cast is an invitation in itself for anyone who loves the cinema of that generation. A writer retelling his own novel with his own hands years later is a touching kind of fidelity, too. The title, a word for bad luck or the evil eye, hints at the story's mood from the start. Eyes used to Yeşilçam's dramas of fate may find a familiar melancholy here; yet the coolness of the French noir tradition may keep those hoping for warmth at a certain distance.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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