A better English title would have been Max and the Scrap Dealers or Scrapmen.
A junkman in my neck of the woods is more like a guy that sells all types second hand demolition detritus of value, doors, windows, cornices, lighting fixtures, radiators, toilets, sinks, and other varied salvaged items like old tools, etc., etc., and not zeroed in on just the usual copper, brass, tin, aluminum, lead, iron and steel scrap metals.
Scrap dealers covers wrecking yards and other scrap metal operations.
Directed by Claude Sautet (Classe tous risques, Un coeur en hiver).
Written by Claude Sautet, Claude Néron, & Jean-Loup Dabadie with additional dialogue by Claude Sautet, Claude Néron & Jean-Loup Dabadie, based on the novel by Claude Néron.
Cinematography by René Mathelin, and the excellent Music composed by Philippe Sarde.
Michel Piccoli (Contempt, Belle du Jour, Compartiment tueurs, Is Paris Burning, The Infernal Trio) as Max, Romy Schneider (Purple Noon, The Trial, La Piscine) as Lily, Georges Wilson as Chief Inspector, Bernard Fresson (The Train, La grosse caisse, Woman In Chains, The French Connection II) as Abel Maresco.
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| Michel Piccoli as Max |
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| Bernard Fresson as Abel Maresco |
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| Romy Schneider as Lily |
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| Georges Wilson as le Commissaire - Chief Inspector |
With François Périer as Rosinsky, Boby Lapointe as P'tit Lu, Michel Creton as Robert Saïdini, Henri-Jacques Huet as Dromadaire, Jacques Canselier as Jean-Jean, Alain Grellier as Guy Laronget, Maurice Auzel as Tony, Philippe Léotard as Losfeld, Robert Favart as Loiselle, Dominique Zardi as Baraduch, Albert Augier as a client of Lily, Betty Beckers as Maria.
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The titles play on a posturized sequence heavy on green.
We cut to the late night office of a police "quartier administratif." We watch an officer, Losfeld, arrive and head to a glassed in room with a light on. In that office le commissaire is typing his report. There conversation is around Max and the events just transpired. Here is where the flashback begins.
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Max is riding in 1966 Pininfarina styled Peugeot 404 Brake (wagon). They are heading to the scene of a bank robbery.
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| 1966 Pininfarina styled Peugeot 404 Brake (wagon) |
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Max had an informer who tipped him off. However the mastermind found out about the informer and instead of calling odd the job, just changed to a different bank. Max was suckered.
Back at the office Max explains all this to le commissaire. We also learn that Max's informer was found stabbed behind the Algerian Hotel.
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They go to lunch and while Max and Le commissaire are dining Max is the but of jokes from some of his fellow inspectors. Le commissaire instructs Max to check on the used car dealer Baraduch, that the bank robbers got their getaway car from.
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We cut to the used car dealers mezzanine office in the lots garage. Max and Losfeld are interrogating Baraduch the owner, about the car used in the bank heist.
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They ask him why he doesn't keep receipts for all sales? Who did he sell it to, who did he buy it from? Baraduch replies that some buys and sales are just just for abandoned junkers.
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Max reminds him its against the law regardless, and he tells Losfeld to take him in. Baraduch yells out wait, what if i gave you something. Max looks interested.
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Baraduch tells him that the guy he bought the car from, is in fact in the garage right now, just below the office bullshitting with the mechanics.
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A nice jazz piece of music begins when Max looks down out the window and recognizes an old army buddy from the 41st Colonial Infantry, way back, Abel Maresco.
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His break has finally come.
Max asks Baraduch, what is he doing here?
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Baraduch replies he's here for the rest of his money. Max announces that he's leaving, he instructs Losfeld to act like the bookkeeper and Baraduch to call Able up and pay him off, once he's split.
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Baraduch sticks his head out of one of the mezzanine's windows and calls Able up.
When Able leaves Max, tails him. At a sidewalk Metro System entrance map, Max asks Able for a light. Able recognizes his old army buddy Max, and the two start a conversation.
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They go to a nearby bar to reminisce. Abel asks Max if he ever became a judge, Max replies that he gave that up and he just a business man. Able tells Max he's in the scrap business, but he admits that it's not always on the up and up.
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Max asks Able what happened? He replies that he's always been unlucky. He was in business with a guy who gambled away the profits, and he thought he'd killed him so he joined the Foreign Legion for ten years. Abel laughs, "Ten years in the Foreign Legion and he wasn't dead. Ten years, Indochina, Algeria, the lot.. And then there was a women...."
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Max offers to pay for their drinks, and asks Able where's he going? He answers Nanterre. Max tells Able if he wants to share a taxi he can drop him off in Nanterre.
Nanterre was home to La Folie, a Bidonville, one of the largest shantytowns in the Paris region. It's main businesses were heavy manufacturing, automotive plants, and metal foundries and scrapyards dominated the Seine riverbanks interspersed with tire and rubber product factories.
Think of Nanterre as the equivalent to NYC's - Long Island City, Maspeth, Hunters Point, Sunnyside, and Greenpoint.
While walking away from the the bar Max asks Abel what if he gets caught. Able replies it's only eighteen months.
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They share a cab and Able tells Max he'd like to get together again so he writes the number and name of the cafe in Nanterre where he hangs out, Chez Saïdini, on a match book cover and gives it to Max.
Max reports on his progress with Le commissaire. When Max mentions Nanterre, le commissaire says the name Rosinsky, he served with Rosinsky and remarks that he must be an inspector there by now. Le commissaire adds that Rosinsky will know everyone in the area.
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Here we cut to Rosinsky who gets out of his car and enters the Chez Saïdini. Inside he mingles, gets a brew from the bartender and makes the rounds. He walks by Able sitting in on a card game.
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We cut back to the office of Le commissaire where Rosinsky makes his report to him and Max.
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| François Périer as Rosinsky on rt. |
Rosinsky: A small cafe run by and ex-madame, Mrs. Saïdini. There they meet and ply kids games, doing nothing, drop-outs.
Le commissaire: They work?
Rosinsky: They steal, three ton spools of copper wire, and cut up cars with blowtorches.
Le commissaire: Not dangerous.
Rosinsky: Some of them may be, but generally they give no trouble. I have no complaints.
Le commissaire: Do you know Maresco, Able Maresco?
Rosinsky: Yes an ex legionnaire, with the scrap merchant gang. You want him?
Le commissaire: No. But we heard that he's going to pull off a big job.
Max: Do you have informers in the cafe?
Rosinsky: I have one who spends his whole time there but he hasn't told me anything.
Max: I Know it's true.
Max then pumps Rosinsky about the gang. How many? Rosinsky explains that it's not that easy. Its always changing, a central nucleus with satellites revolving around it. The nucleus are those that work for Benassard. Benassard is the guy who rents them his truck, he makes twice as much.
Here, we cut to an auto wrecking yard montage, and while Rosinsky narrates V.O. we are also visually introduced to the gang.
We see Benassard is working a burn barrel, Able has a cutting torch, and is under the hood of a wreck that they are all parting out, about to cut the bolts holding the radiator.
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| Benassard |
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| Abel |
Tony Chantoiseau, an ex boxer friend of Able, carrying one of the door of the car. He's got three convictions for pimping and lives with an old whore who pays him.
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| Maurice Auzel as Tony |
Then there's Lou "Little Lou" Sterafino, a brute, he was seven when his dad was guillotined. He's been in jail dozens of times.
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| Boby Lapointe as P'tit Lu |
Jean-Marie Patinette, Serafino's side kick. Guy Lorange the youngest,
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| Jacques Canselier as Jean-Jean Patinette |
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| Alain Grellier as Guy Lorange |
The last is the son of Mrs. Saïdini who runs the cafe, no brains, he's always with Dromadaire my informer. Dromadaire is also a pimp with several girls. That's the lot.
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| Michel Creton as Robert Saïdini |
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| Henri-Jacques Huet as Dromadaire |
Max's exposes, that because of all the unpunished petty crime, all the skells get away with, it's no wonder that they eventually graduate to bigger things, like a hold-up.
Rosinsky scoffs. Max replies, not something like the Bank of France but something amateurs could handle. Small fry grow up. When that day comes he wants to be there, not to kill them but to catch them red-handed and to make them examples to deter others. Rosinsky replies that that may take a long time.
When Rosinsky departs, Max makes his proposal to le commissaire, he's going to steer them somehow to a victim.
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Le commissaire tells Max to be careful. Max answers assuring him that he will not see Able or the others until the day of the hold-up.
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Here we cut to what looks like a resident hotel room, there's an unmade bed, a cheap sawhorse desk strewn with paperwork, empty and partially filled bottles of booze are scattered about. A steam radiator under a window provides heat. Clothes lay draped over a chair, draws are half closed. On a dresser sits a collection of spy glasses. Max is "baching it," obviously a man obsessed with police work.
We watch Max, he thinks, drinks, paces about and smokes. He finishes his drink, picks up one of spy glasses and while focusing it into the mirror gets an idea.
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We cut to Max coming down a stairway to the lobby. He passes the desk and speaks to a woman, the proprietress, who is either his sister or a cousin, its never made clear.
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He asks her if she is using the car, she replies no. The woman hands him the car keys and an envelope telling him that she was in Lyon, here's your check, your father said the vineyards have been having a great season this year, best wine crop in 20 years, and that in another month they will send another check.
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She also tells him that Cecile is expecting a baby around Christmas. So we now know that Max is obviously well off, with an independent income.
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Max takes off in the 1969 Autobianchi A111 and we then cut to him parked in a lot. He's got out his spyglass and is watching the Chez Saïdini. He spots Abel coming out with Guy Lorange and two women. The two women hop in a car and drive off.
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He spots Abel coming out with Guy Lorange and two women. The two women hop in a car and drive off.
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We cut to Max in Rosinky's office questioning him about Abel's gangs gal pals. Ida, Nicole, Jeanette, and Lily all prostitutes. We find out that Lily is the one with Abel. Rosinky reads her rap sheet to Max.
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As we here Rosinsky read we again go into a montage of Lily.
Rosinsky partly in V.O.: A German. Born in Hamburg in 1941. Father Killed in the war. Been in France three years. She works mainly at the Etoile Hotel (Star Hotel)...
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She started on the streets of Munich in '59. She was with a pimp who made her take drugs. Attempted suicide in '65. Then she met Able ex-legionnaire, her pimp was in jail but his pals were watching her. Abel half killed one of them, so they both ran away from Germany and they landed here.
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She didn't look like much when she arrives but she's improved. She's on the streets again and he lets her, and doesn't take a penny.
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Nanterre may not be much but she likes being at Saïdini's, the gang respects her and she wasn't used to that. She quite the queen among them.
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Cut to Max in his borrowed car, observing Lily outside the hot sheet Hotel Star (Etoile). He drives by, gives Lily a look over, and parks.
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He gets out of the car and is about to walk across the street to Lily, but she just picked up a john and is heading into the hotel.
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Max, now heads into the hotels cafe and waits for Lily to re-appear. When she does, he goes outside and engages her services.
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At the room door he pays 20 francs to the madame and throws in a tip. When he asks Lily how much she tells him whatever he can afford, minimum is 100 francs. Max asks her name, and when she asks for his, tells her Felix.
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Max drops a generous 300 on the table and just as Lily is about the zip out of her dress, he tells her that it's not necessary. Confused Lily asks if something is wrong and Max assures her that he's Ok and he just wants to watch her.
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He tells her that she is very pretty. When she tries to guess his occupation he tells her he's a banker at the Credit Foncier de la Siene.
We cut to Max renting a furnished apartment, and moving some of his personal items into it as part of his Felix the banker undercover personality.
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Next he's driving the Autobianchi A111 down to Nanterre and the Star Hotel again. He spots Lily outside, and opens the passenger door. Lily sees him and runs over to the car an hops in. He drives her to his hideaway.
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Once inside he offers he something to drink. Its wine, and Max goes to get it.
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She sits on a chair by a table. On the table is a pile of hundred franc notes. When Max returns with the wine, he tells her to take as much as she wants.
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Lily peels off 500 and stuffs it in her purse. She then gets up and looks around the apartment, sees through and open door, the bathtub, and asks if she could take a bath. Max replies sure.
Cut to Lily enjoying her bath then we cut to max and we watch him load a camera.
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When Max enters the bathroom with it Lily exclaims something along the lines of "I knew it. You don't make love you're a pervert." Max assures her he's just an amateur photographer.
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After her bath the play cards and talk.
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Max's plan progresses. On Lily's next visit to Max's apartment, she finds the walls plastered with the head shots he took during her bath, again they have a drink, play cards, and have a good time.
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Max while glancing at a newspaper, remarks to Lily that a colleague of his had his bank robbed, and it was on one of the few days in the month when there was a lot of cash on hand.
The Max-Lily sequences are interspersed with various sequences at Chez Saïdini, Able and his gang on a job stealing a spool of copper wire, and Lily and Able in his apartment.
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Max uses psychology, by asking Lily questions that makes her think more about her future. She tells him she has some money in a bank, not as much as Max must have, she jokes. Max is planting the seeds that results in Lily pushing Abel to think of doing more than just scratching out a living from scrap.
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When auto wrecker Benassard's truck breaks down, Able and the gang are out of the copper stealing business. This accelerates events.
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Max's plan is working. Max and Le commissaire get the feed back from Rosinsky through his informer Dromadaire at Saïdini's. The gang are acquiring guns.
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Now Max just has to let slip to Lily the day when his bank is going to have a big cash deposit on hand. He does it by calling her at Chez Saïdini and telling her that he has to work late next Tuesday night because of the big cash deposit is scheduled on this upcoming Wednesday.
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What unexpectedly is also working, is a building attraction between Max and Lily...
Noirsville
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| Philippe Léotard as Losfeld |
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Claude Sautet, along with cinematographer René Mathelin, and composer Philippe Sarde have created a very good French Neo Noir that's hitting on all cylinders. Michel Piccoli, Romy Schneider, and Bernard Fresson give stellar performances. Schneider is just drop dead gorgeous and illuminates the screen. Fresson is very convincing and Piccoli's performance is very impressive. 8/10
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