Borsalino
Short description
Set in 1930s Marseille, Borsalino follows François Capella and Roch Siffredi, two small-time criminals who meet while fighting over the same woman. They quickly recognize that they are more useful to each other as partners than as rivals, and together they move through rigged horse races and fixed boxing matches before taking on jobs for the city's established gang bosses. Their ambitions eventually push them to act on their own account, and their loose, improvised approach to crime begins to shift as the stakes grow.
Jacques Deray directed the film, working from a screenplay he wrote with Jean-Claude Carrière and Claude Sautet. It followed Deray's The Swimming Pool (1969) and preceded Flic Story (1975) in a run of crime pictures stretching from Symphony for a Massacre (1963) to Credo (1983). Alain Delon produced as well as starring as Roch Siffredi, with Jean-Paul Belmondo as François Capella. Catherine Rouvel, Françoise Christophe, Corinne Marchand and Laura Adani appear among a credited cast of 32.
The Italian-French production was made by Paramount, Marianne Productions, Mars Film and Adel Productions. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from around 5,700 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.9 from roughly 257 votes, indicating a modest but settled reputation among viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jean-Paul Belmondo and Alain Delon are considered rival actors and rarely appear together in films (they didn't share a scene in "Pretty Devils", but they star together in the action comedy "One Chance on Two," as well as in "Borsalino").
- The film's screenplay was based on Evgen Sakkomano's book "The Marseilles Bandits".
- During its release in Germany, the film also had the title "Without Coercion" (German: "Die Losleger").
- The characters were based on real people – Paul Carbone and François Spirito, Marseille bandits from the 1930s.
- A sequel, "Borsalino & Co.", was filmed in 1974. Since Belmondo's character dies at the end of the first film, only Alain Delon appeared in it. The sequel was significantly worse than the original.
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