Monsieur Gangster (Les Tontons flingueurs)

Georges Lautner directed the 1963 gangster comedy Monsieur Gangster, known in France as Les Tontons flingueurs and also released as Crooks in Clover. A French-language co-production of France, Italy and West Germany, it runs about 109 minutes. Critics were cool on its 1963 release but audiences warmed to it, and its standing has since grown to cult status as a French television classic.

The film adapts Albert Simonin's 1955 novel Grisbi or not grisbi and closes the trilogy about the crook Max le Menteur, which began with Touchez pas au grisbi and Le cave se rebiffe. Simonin, Lautner and Michel Audiard wrote the screenplay: Simonin left the dark, bloody tone of the novel for humour, and Audiard supplied the dialogue. Lino Ventura, Bernard Blier, Jean Lefebvre, Francis Blanche and Claude Rich lead the cast, with Sabine Sinjen, Venantino Venantini and Robert Dalban.

Audiard's witty lines did most to make the film's name; fragments of dialogue and character names such as Lulu la Nantaise entered French popular culture. Its 2002 DVD sold 250,000 copies. One of its best-known scenes has the gangsters trying to chat in a kitchen over a vile, strong liquor. Audiard thought the scene pointless, but Lautner kept it in homage to Key Largo.