LE SAMOURAÏ - Roubaix/Rosier - "What Do You Want?" (1967)

What with Halloween just around the corner, I need to get some of these spy and thriller flicks out of my hair, so I can concentrate strictly on the scary, and tonight's flick is no exception! Sometimes it gets kinda lonely down here in The Dungeon, so when we get bored, we play a little game called Twofers, where we take two random things and put them together, and make one, like a Randy Savage head on the neck of a plastic lion doll, it's funny how it works, or maybe you just had to be there, but I can't help thinking that's the basic concept behind tonight's film, "Le Samouraï"!

It's a French film about a modern samurai warrior, i.e. a hitman, or two things that don't make sense when combined, but then again, they do, kinda like me and Tabonga! "Le Samouraï" is the love child of boy genius director Jean-Pierre Melville, whose studio burned to the ground during the same time period that this film was made!

A modern day samurai warrior has to have all the right tools to get the job done right!! Stealing a car when you've got every key combination in the world is a piece of cake!

The average rainfall in Paris, France is 607 - 641 millimeters, or 24 to 25 inches a year!

"Le Samouraï" is stark, it's tough, gritty, and it's very cool!

All the angles are covered when the warrior is working! After stealing the car, he heads on over to the chop shop to have the license plates changed!

The samurai is always aware of of his surroundings and exactly what time it is if he is going to have the perfect alibi!

Great name for a band, "Hotel Sandwichs"

A Hitman with a code of honor, pretty cool dichotomy!

Alain Delon is Jef Costello!! A man on a mission! This is an awesome role for Alain, cold and calculating! Alain's private life is flled with stories, musically, one of the best is that he fathered a child, Christian Aaron Boulogne, with The Velvet Underground's blond chanteuse Nico! What a pair! Alain is still working at least as of last year!

This is Cathy Rosier as la pianiste Valérie! Cathy supposedly released an LP in the early 70's called "Cathy Banana!" I'd ask her about it, but unfortunately she passed away in 2004. No credits for the bass player and drummer, they might have been members of her actual performing trio! Any other music you hear was composed by François de Roubaix, an amazing performer who managed to compose for 86 titles before passing away at 36!

All the pieces are in place, now it's time for "Le Samourai" to go to work!

There is only one problem, Jef Costello has been witnessed leaving the scene!

Serious, but dryly comedic, the very efficient French police don't screw around, and round up 100's of potential suspects in a couple of hours. It definitely works to Jef's favor that his choice of dress is quite common in France at the time!!!

Even though Jef has excuses and witnesses to explain his whereabouts before, after, and during the time of the murder, he is still under a lot of suspicion!! First he was at a poker game, then he was at his girlfriends pad, so what are the cops supposed to do??

The frustration level of the authorities is mounting quickly! While almost virtually unknown in America, François Périer as The Superintendant was very well known to French moviegoers, having worked with all the greats!

Wow, here's the new candidate for the coolest phone ever!! Ce que le F!?

There's only one way to get out of this mess, and that's for the samurai to dive in head first, the only way he knows how!

Jef Costello's girlfriend was played by his real wife and the Mother of his son, Anthony Delon, Nathalie Delon! Nathalie was also co-writer of the English lyrics for a song used in four movies, "I've Seen That Face Before(Libertango)"!

Now the samurai has the guys who hired him, and the police looking for him! The stupid guy with the gun is just about to get his ass kicked!!

In layman terms "A transmitter using a gallium arsenide FET in a power amplifier and having a biassing circuit for generating a gate biassing voltage for the FET, a first power supply for supplying a first power to the biassing circuit and a second power supply for supplying a second power to the power amplifier, the second power being higher in voltage than the first power and being produced at a time delay from production of the first power at a start condition of the transmitter, wherein the first power is supplied to the biassing circuit through a first diode with a voltage drop to thereby reduce the gate biassing voltage below a normal one so that an undesired signal is suppressed at the power amplifier!!!" Translation: Get that bastard!!

So there you go, the tale of The French Samuari, I hope you dug it as much as I did, which would be a lot, or "un grand nombre!" Le Samouraï" is available from those krazy folks over at Netflix! Do yourself a favor!!