Le Samourai (1967)

A professional assassin (Alain Delon) carries out a hit but he has an iron tight alibi so the police can't touch him. However, the police inspector (Francois Perier) is convinced he is guilty and has him constantly followed. Things get complicated when the people who hired him want him killed and out of the way. Directed by Jean Pierre Melville (LE CERCLE ROUGE). The French adored the American gangster movies of the 1930s and the film noirs of the 1940s and appropriated them in the mid 1950s. But they weren't carbon copies or simple homages. The French (directors like Melville, Godard and Verneuil to name just three) extended the fatalism that were often suggested in American crime movies and some like Melville added an almost glamorous sheen to the films. Visually, LE SAMOURAI may be the most elegant of the French crime movies. It's a spellbinding piece of cinema. Incredibly, the 1967 film was never officially released in the U.S. until 1972 and then only to cash in on the success of THE GODFATHER. A highly influential film on film makers like Walter Hill and Nicolas Winding Refn. With Nathalie Delon and Cathy Rosier.