Le saut de l'ange (1971)

In Marseille, the election battle is raging, pitting a Corsican clan backed by the powerful Orsini family against the property developer Forestier, who employs men from the SAC to impose his dominance and secure support. The underworld thrives on gambling and prostitution, but it is looking to expand into highly profitable development and construction projects. Politics is ruled by corruption, and one attack follows another. However, this thoroughly politically incorrect opening is only an appetizer, since this is a crime thriller in which action takes center stage. At the end, the political setting comes back into full force. To win the election, Forestier has the Orsini brothers, Lucien and Marc, executed. Soon, only Louis remains: an adventurer living in Thailand, where he was nicknamed “Cobra” when he defended his plantation like a warlord. He has put his weapons away and now looks after his forestry business, his wife, and their little girl. He has deliberately cut ties with Marseille’s underworld and the Orsini clan’s affairs. But Forestier fears revenge and decides to have him killed. Fusco, a hitman, is sent to Thailand to eliminate the last of the Orsini brothers. At the same time, Louis receives a visiting American friend at his plantation, Mason, a sort of cop, a former alcoholic who works in American security and is about to return to Marseille. Louis entrusts his daughter to him so he can take her back to France and place her in a boarding school. Fusco arrives after the child has left and accidentally kills her mother. Cobra regains his action-man instincts and sets off with his men in pursuit of the killers. Fusco escapes him, but Cobra and his friends lay a trap for him. Under torture, the hitman gives two names: Forestier, who ordered the killing, and Alvarez, who organizes the murders. A telegram from Mason informs Louis that his daughter has just been injured in an attack upon arriving in Marseille! Louis immediately boards a flight to France, accompanied by two Vietnamese men devoted to him. On arriving in Marseille, he is met by Mason and Commissioner Pedrinelli, who tell him that his daughter is dead. Mason says that Louis was the killers’ target and that they made a mistake. Louis, however, accuses his friend of being responsible because of his alcoholism and negligence. Mason faces the accusation. The police investigate, but make no headway despite numerous interrogations. Mason cooperates with Commissioner Pedrinelli to track down Fusco, an American citizen. Louis reveals that Fusco is dead. Pedrinelli strongly advises him to return to Bangkok and leave matters to the French police. Instead, Louis goes to the grand Villa Orsini, where he finds his sister-in-law, Sylvaine, an ambitious social climber. She tries to win his trust, but he is wary of her. The police discreetly keep his movements under surveillance. Louis sends his men after Alvarez. The two Asians, whose audacity and efficiency are astonishing, first wound him gravely, then launch a commando operation in a hospital to kill him right under the police’s noses. Mason plays an ambiguous game between legality and friendship: he suggests that Pedrinelli look for the two “Chinese” on the passenger list of the flight from Thailand. Louis’s friends are identified, hunted down, and shot one after another by the police. Tensions rise, and Forestier, thanks to his connections, obtains police protection, while his henchmen beat up the “leftists” putting up posters around the city. Mason disapproves of the police’s subservience to the interests of money, but an exasperated Pedrinelli retorts: “Change the regime, change society, and perhaps the police will change too.” Mason then tries to persuade Orsini not to continue the vendetta and tells him about the measures taken to protect Forestier. Yet Louis has only one plan now: to kill the scoundrel. But he is the only one left who can carry out his revenge. He then discovers that Sylvaine plays an essential role in the murders: the film’s ending reveals the workings of an alliance between power and moral corruption. This returns the story to its original political setting. Determined, Louis goes all the way, killing Forestier but unable to prevent Sylvaine’s suicide. Mason, meanwhile, casts himself as a virtuous sheriff; after his friend wounds him in the leg during their fight, he shoots Louis in the back, fatally.