Echec Au Porteur (1958)

A courier (Serge Reggiani) to drug traffickers resolves to start a new life with his girlfriend (Jeanne Moreau). So that they can make a fresh start, he agrees to take on one more job for a large sum of money. He's transporting a soccer ball full of drugs or so he thinks. In reality, the ball is really a bomb set to go off at ten o'clock. When the ball is stolen by a kid (Bertrand Borie), the race is on for a police inspector (Paul Meurisse) to find the ball before it explodes. Based on the novel by Noel Calef and directed by Gilles Grangier (LE DESORDRE ET LA NUIT). This intense little known thriller was never released in the U.S., just Europe. If it had been released in America, it might have had a better reputation. Despite some illustrious names in the cast (Moreau, Reggiani, Meurisse), it's really an ensemble film with no central protagonist. Grangier isn't a particularly well known director in the States but I've really liked the movies I've seen of his. Here, he keeps the suspense quotient high and tight down to the last minutes. A recently restored version of this was shown at last year's (2021) Cannes film festival. With Gert Frobe, Reggie Nalder and Simone Renant.