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Un Flic @ the Classic French Film Festival

In "Un Flic," piano-playing Edouard (Alain Delon) and nightclub owner Simon (Richard Crenna of "Wait Until Dark" and "Body Heat") both love Kathy (Catherine Deneuve). If that's not trouble enough, Edouard's a post-burnout cop and Simon's bent on the heist of a lifetime, and they seem to be looking past Kathy at each other. Jean-Pierre Melville's final work features iconic performances from the star trio a never more jadedly detached Delon, a never more chillingly icy Deneuve, and a surprisingly effective, smilingly insinuating Crenna. The film features two trademark Melville heists: the first a near-wordless bank job on a deserted, bleakly rain-sodden seaside street; the second a nerve-shredding, timed-to-the-second drug snatch done via helicopter-to-train transfer.

Former Village Voice critic J. Hoberman writes of the director: "The high priest of tough-guy mysticism and master of the attitudinous gangster thriller, Melville not only anticipated the French new wave but served as a model for the neo new wave of Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-wai." And Time Out New York observes: "With barely a word spoken between them mostly a series of virile glances Delon and Crenna paint an idealized portrait of masculine camaraderie, one that's exposed at the end of Melville's bracing last testament as a soul-shattering illusion."

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Diane Carson, professor emeritus of film at St. Louis Community College at Meramec and adjunct professor of film studies at Webster University.