Jean-Pierre Melville: Un flic / A Cop / Dirty Money (Take II)

Images from Jean-Pierre Melville's Un flic / A Cop / Dirty Money (1972) keep floating around in my head, days after seeing it. That's worth noting. 

Commissaire Edouard Coleman, the protagonist (Alain Delon), is comparable to Clint Eastwood's character in Dirty Harry (1971), another cop movie that came out about the same time. Both characters are laconic to the extreme. Neither has any qualms about employing "enhanced interrogation techniques" whenever they see fit. 

In addition, Coleman is nearly identical in temper and disposition to Costello, the main character in Melville's Le Samouraï (1967), also played by Delon -- even though Coleman is a cop and Costello a contract assassin.

German title for Un flic: Der Chef

Two of the main "robbers and gangsters" in Un flic often play cops and military types. For example, think of Richard Crenna as Colonel Sam Troutman in the Rambo flicks, or of Michael Conrad as Sergeant Esterhaus in Hillstreet Blues. And because you never quite know who's throwing heads or tails, or which are the sinners, which are the day's saints, remember: "Let's be careful out there."

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.