Le clan des Siciliens

Plot synopsis:
In Paris, bloodthirsty jewel thief Roger Sartet (Alain Delon) escapes from custody with the help of the Manalese, a small-time but well-organised Sicilian Mafia clan led by patriarch Vittorio (Jean Gabin), which includes his sons Aldo (Yves Lefebvre), Sergio (Marc Porel), and son-in-law Luigi (Philippe Baronnet). While in prison, Sartet shared a cell with an electrician (Christian de Tillière) who installed an extensive security system at a diamond exhibition in Rome. The electrician is in prison because, when he returned home early, he caught his wife in bed with a lover and shot them. Sartet offered a sympathetic ear and the electrician supplied him with the complete security system details.Vittorio and a fellow Mafiose, Tony Nicosia (Amedeo Nazzari) of New York, visit the exhibition but find that additional security has been added that make what would have been a simple robbery very difficult. When they purposefully set off the alarm system, they find the local police station is just down the road from the exhibition hall. Nicosia conceives of an alternative plan to steal the diamonds while they are in transit to another show in New York. He sends Jack (Sydney Chaplin), an alcoholic, to France to inform Vittorio with the details.Commissaire Le Goff (Lino Ventura) pursues Sartet with unbridled determination. Sartet killed two of his men in cold blood during an earlier arrest. Guessing that Sartet needs false papers in order to leave the country, Le Goff's enquiries lead him to the Malanese and their arcade game business which serves as a cover for their more illegal activities. While he questions Vittorio, Sartet slips out of the building in a car, right under Le Goff's nose.Jeanne (Irina Demick), wife of Vittorio's son Aldo and an able crook in her own right, becomes increasingly fascinated by Sartet. She has always felt out of place as the only French person in the Sicilian clan. While hiding out in a villa near the Italian border she attracts Sartet's attention by sunbathing nude but as they kiss they are caught in the act by Luigi's six-year-old son Roberto (César Chauveau). Jeanne gets the boy to promise not to mention it to anyone.In Rome, the gang subtly kidnap Edward Evans, the insurance man sent to oversee the transfer of the diamonds to New York. Sartet takes his place and joins the other officials accompanying the diamonds on a regular scheduled flight to New York via Paris. Among the passengers joining the plane in Paris are Jack, Jeanne, Vittorio and his sons. Things almost go wrong when Evans' wife (Sally Nesbitt) turns up and even boards the plane looking for her husband, but Vittorio leads her to believe that her husband will be on another flight.Having tried to contact her husband's hotel in Rome and being told that he has left, Mrs Evans goes to the police. At police HQ, she identifies Sartet as one of the men she saw on the plane while it was grounded in Paris. Told that his enemy has left the country, and guessing what he is up to, Le Goff requests a cigarette, having given up smoking some time ago.Meanwhile, the plane is making its descent towards New York when the gang suddenly hijacks the aircraft. The crew are held at gunpoint and Jack, a former pilot, takes over the co-pilot's seat.Warned of Sartet's imminent arrival in America, the local police race to the airport, but the plane in fact overshoots New York City and lands on a freeway which has been closed off by the local mob. Other Mafia men are waiting in cars. They unload the diamonds from the plane and split up, Jack for Canada and the Manalese for Paris. Intending to move to Veracruz, Sartet hides out in New York while awaiting his share of the proceeds.Back home, late one evening, the Manalese are watching a film on TV which includes a scene of a couple kissing on a beach. Roberto says that it "Looks like Auntie Jeanne with Mister Sartet". Jeanne denies this but the others will not accept it. They lure Sartet back to Paris by withholding his share of the loot. Jeanne calls Sartet's sister Monique (Danielle Volle) to warn him that he is walking into a trap. Monique goes to the airport but when her brother fails to turn up she is confronted by the Manalese boys who are subsequently arrested by Le Goff and his men who had Monique under surveillance.Sartet actually came by an earlier plane. He contacts Vittorio, demanding his share. They meet at a place outside of town where Vittorio shoots both Jeanne and Sartet dead. He then returns home, only to be arrested by Le Goff.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
Classic French gangster film with the three greatest stars : Gavin, Delon and Ventura.
Picture talks about a tough criminal convict -Alain Delon- who escapes and contacts a Siciliens clan ruled by an intelligent old man - Jean Gabin - to prepare a spectacular heist ; then they're pursued by an obstinate Police Inspector - Lino Ventura - .
Meanwhile , the ex-con falls in love with a family member -Irina Demick- .Film runtime is overlong, however is neither tiring , nor boring but amusing as the suspense and thriller is continuous .
The film is considered a French classic movie and one of the biggest about hold-up/mobsters genre.
Since I heard the score for the first time, I tried to find the film and finally I purchased a Region Free, NTSC, widescreen DVD with French, English and Russian Audio tracks and English subtitles.
I have been a fan of French crime/heist/noir/mystery of 1960-1980 films for long time and to see three of my favorite actors (Alain Delon, Jean Gabin, and Lino Ventura) who had made many classics of the beloved genres acting in the same movie added to my excitement.
All three are excellent, and one of the advantages of the new DVD was the chance to see the film in its original French and to hear the real voices of three screen legends.
Aging Jean Gabin, one of the most beloved French actors with the wide acting range who could play successfully the characters as diverse as inspector Maigret and Pépé le Moko is wonderful as Vittorio Manalese, the father and "the Godfather" of the Sicilian Clan, the family which is tied by blood in more ways than one.
It's great seeing Jean Gabin play the sophisticated patriarch of a Sicilian crime family that plots to hijack an airliner with $50 million in jewels.
Alain Delon is his usual moody, wild-man self as the cold-blooded killer who is being sought by the French police and is a constant threat to the upcoming heist.
Roger Sartet (Alain Delon) is a high profile career criminal who is top of the French police wanted list, so when he escapes from their custody for a second time under the nose of dogged cop L'inspecteur Le Goff (Lino Ventura), he goes immediately into hiding as the police try to locate him.
Vittorio Manalese (Jean Gabin) a Sicilian born criminal and godfather of a mob style family, is the man who sprung him from police custody, he has long planned his retirement back in Sicily but is immediately interested in one last heist after hearing Sartet's plan for a big jewel heist in Rome.
All goes well for Sartet until a child's indiscretion alters his fate for good.Entertaining enough crime flick, with some excellent set pieces and made with plenty of style, the funky main theme by Ennio Morricone being a highlight.
Its not a film for the pc brigade however as there is plenty of sexual denouement, Sartet's affair with the beautiful Jeanne Manalese (Irina Demick) producing one of cinemas most outrageous moments of sexual symbolism, its so absurd you just have to laugh..
Le Clan des Siciliens has that typical French crime noir touch: from the very beginning the spectator knows that things will go wrong, but not how.
The Sicilian Clan truly deserves it and every second of the film is tightly acted and directed.
Alain Delon, in one of his best performances, plays a master thief who gets hired by Jean Gabin for the occasion of pulling off a 50 million dollar jewel robbery.
There is also a very good subplot involving Delon and the wife of the one of the Clan boys that runs along the way which is ultimately responsible for the film's very very satisfying finale.
"Clan of the Sicilians" is a real French gangster movie classic from 1969 with three of the most important male actors of that time and genre - Lino Ventura as hard-boiled Parisian cop, Jean Gabin as a dominating Sicilian gangster clan "padre" and young Alain Delon as a hot-blooded, seducing robber.
The whole movie is dominated by the great acting of these three characters, but with enough space left for a dark film noire atmosphere and a thrilling "big coup" plot.
In the glossy world of "The Sicilian Clan," the criminals are professionals who make money the old-fashioned way - they plan robberies.
The picture starts with members of the Manalese family, arranging for the escape from custody of career criminal Roger Sartet (Alain Delon).
That robbery and its aftermath are part of the plot of "Goodfellas." In "The Sicilian Clan" Sartet's character has inside information on the burglar alarm installation at the Villa Borghese, where a big jewelry exhibit is taking place.
Thinking it over, Queens in the 1970s was the most appropriate place to see a crime movie  like "The Sicilian Clan." A French crime movie that in part imitated what was happening in Queens..
When I saw the film's poster for the first time, it was so impacting I thought for once that Gabin, Ventura and Delon were allies, all three members of the Sicilian clan.
I was wrong but I defy anyone not to have these three legendary names pop up in their heads when they think of "The Sicilian Clan"Alain Delon is Roger Sartet, a man sentenced to death after a failed armed robbery that cost the lives of two policemen.
Lino Ventura is Le Goff, the Chief of Police who takes Sartet's case personally and can't admit the way he escaped under their nose.
And Jean Gabin is Vittorio Manalese, the head of the 'Sicilian Clan', who wishes he could do a final job before retiring in Sicily.
Delon is the dark, handsome and unsympathetic antihero; Ventura is the moral and solidly built law enforcer and Gabin the wise and experienced criminal patriarch, sharing with Le Goff a profound contempt for Sartet.Henri Verneuil's 'The Sicilian Clan" is mostly renowned for having reassembled the Holy Trinity of French Cinema, maybe at the expenses of the other characters who seem underdeveloped in comparison.
It's all about the magical trio that elevated the film to its legendary status, a sort of French "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly".Befittingly, the film is scored by the Maestro Ennio Morricone who specialized in the late 60's and early 70's in the ultimate tough-guy films, from the Western to the gangster flick.
Death itself is the omnipresent figure, the unsung character of the film, Sartet is a walking dead, with nothing to lose, Le Goff's determination is built on the death of his men and the Mannalese although criminals refuse to kill anyone in their job, but we know that every rule allows a few exceptions.If the film can seem more superficial than Melville's gangster flicks, it remains nonetheless a reference of the caper sub-genre, with a perfectionist and methodical approach.
Mannalese trusts the engineer, but not Sartet, in one of the film's most memorable scenes, he advises him to keep his brains above the belt, he merely escaped from a second arrest when Le Goff found him in a hotel with a prostitute.Mannalese meets a Mafioso fellow, played by a scene-stealing Amedeo Zenarri.
"The Sicilian Clan" features one of the most suspenseful heist ever featured in film and incredibly well done for a French production.Yet we're so accustomed to the genre to understand that the success of the robbery is secondary.
Although the family background is not well developed, it is significant to the plot by making outcasts out of the two French: Sartet, and Jeanne, Irena Demick as Mannalese's sexy daughter-in-law.He didn't touch a woman for two years, almost got himself arrested for an escapade with a prostitute, and she's fascinated by this man who, unlike her husbands, isn't reluctant to use his gun.
The ultra-cool Alain Delon (the French Steve McQueen) is truly superb as the loner hood, and with an excellent cast (including the legend Jean Gabin), thrilling story, stylish direction and yet another masterful score by Ennio Morricone, THE SICILIAN CLAN is a must-see for lovers of heist thrillers..
A number of years before there was Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" – or any other major gangster/mafia film, for that matter – there was Henri Verneuil's "The Sicilian Clan".
Following a very ingenious but dared and risky escape plan, the family recruits the over-ambitious gangster/convicted cop killer Roger Sartet; even though patriarch Vittorio Manalese is reluctant to trust him and in spite of tough copper Le Goff obsessively hunting him down.
"The Sicilian Clan" literally nearly burst from all the talent that is involved; in the cast with some of the greatest names of French cinema (Alain Delon, Jean Gabin and Lino Venturo) but also in the crew with the fantastic cinematography of Henri Decaë and the immortal soundtrack of Ennio Morricone.
During the seventies, and more specifically after the releases of "The Godfather" and films like "Dirty Harry", the police/crime thriller genre boomed in Europe and literally hundreds of excessively violent mafia thrillers got unleashed upon the market.
"The Sicilian Clan" relies more on story and atmosphere instead of on wild action, but the film nevertheless remains an important pioneer..
Another strong thriller by a man who ,although despised by the French "intellectual" critics ,made movies which still hold up very well today ;people are happy to watch for the umpteenth time "La Vache Et Le Prisonnier" "Melodie En Sous -Sol " or this "Clan Des Siciliens " Henri Verneuil was perhaps the only French director of the sixties to come near to the American know-how.His three stars ,Jean Gabin,Alain Delon and Lino Ventura have enough charisma to grab today's audience.Add a solid screenplay ,with never a dull moment,great scenes (particularly the sequences on the plane),a sense of humor (the brat's gaffe ,revealing auntie is having an affair with Delon)and Ennio Morricone 's brilliant score and you have a very entertaining flick ,which you 'll watch again in ten years with the same pleasure..
jewelry heist film with titans of French cinema.
I'll be honest and say I love Jean Gabin and Alain Delon, so I definitely wanted to see The Sicilian Clan, which also stars another great, Lino Ventura.
I'll also add that this film was dubbed in three languages, and Gabin did his own English dubbing.Directed by Henri Verneuil, Gabin is the head of a crime family that plans to hijack a plane with $50 million in jewels on board.Delon is an assassin being chased by the French police and is getting in the way of the robbery plans.
She's very Suzy Parker-like, sexy, and does a good job, though I don't imagine doing a love scene with Alain Delon was all that difficult.Gabin is terrific -- I'd seen so many of his old films it was a shock to see him older.
I don't know about you but sometimes i find these french crime films get so relentlessly dour and gray and existentialist...that even though they can be amazing to watch and awesome to contemplate---fun is never a term i would really use to describe them as....
*maybe lighthearted is the wrong word considering that none of the characters are exactly skipping down the streets with joy--but the film itself is certainly a lot less angst filled then one would expect a french crime film like this to be.Alain Delon is a felon who's sprung from jail while in transit (definitely an awesome scene) at the orders of the leader of this crime family (played by Jean Gabin--who for some reason is using Pinball Manufacturer as his cover--leading to the should be immortal line--Why Don't You Stay Here And Play Some Pinball Detective???) Gabin wants to pull off this daring jewel robbery of a location that Delon's character has some inside knowledge of (delon shared a cell with a guy who used to work at this museum displaying rare jewelery and in exchange for protection--delon gets inside info on both the layout of the museum and the security device triggers--he gets enough info to even map out a blueprint of the lay-out of the place--a little head start on future planning.) Gabin essentially forces Delon to commit this robbery with him and his family---and while Delon isn't exactly happy to do so--he goes along with it.
Meanwhile he's making goo-goo eyes at the wife of one of Gabin's sons---oh gee i wonder if that's gonna be important to the plot later on.Lino Ventura is on hand as the detective tracking down Delon---and he has some wonderful hard bitten one liners throughout.
(Ventura by the way plays the standard issue grouchy detective character so wonderfully here--he really jumps off the screen in some cases--you wonder why he's not better known today among the more famous 60's and 70's french actors.) The plot of the film isn't really all that important anyways--as most of it goes out the window by the second hour anyways--Security at the museum is so airtight--it results in Gabin coming up with a another plan to rob those jewels--one so over the top, so out there, so completely ridiculous--you wonder why you've never seen something like it in a Bruckheimer film in the last 20 years.
Its that kind of go for broke attitude that makes the film a lot of fun--but Ennio Morricone's nearly constant theme music also helps a great deal.
(the music is so omnipresent its almost like its own character here---i would argue that the music plays more of a character here then any of Gabin's sons--many of whom help in the planning of the robbery--but all of em are so interchangeable that you never know who's who...not that it matters since your attention is going to be on Delon anyways.) I would definitely recommend this film--not just to fans of french crime films--but for fans of any ridiculous action movie since it gets so ridiculous that it actually become that rare french crime film that's also fun to watch..
The best feature of this film is the fantastic sound track by the genius composer Ennio Morricone..
Jean Gabin, as a new version of Gattoparde, the delicate colors of humor and nostalgia, the details and the force of image, each of them makes the film a solid expression of legend who can be considered almost a masterpiece..
Absolutely not a good movie, full of clichés about Sicilian mafia, even here depicted as a minor thing, concerning only a few "deviated" families, but all in all perfectly under control.
Henri Verneuil was no Jean-Pierre Melville and "The Sicilian Clan" is no "Le Doulos" or no "Le Cercle Rouge" but it has its own delights, mainly in the form of Jean Gabin and Alain Delon, (the crooks), and Lino Ventura, (the cop on their heels), and a plot that involves the hi-jacking of a plane carrying a fortune in jewels.
The twenty-fourth feature film by French-Armenian writer and director Henri Verneuil (born Ashot Malakian in Rodosto/Tekirdag in Ottoman Turkey), "The Sicilian Clan" is a stylish thriller with a nice score by legendary Ennio Morricone..
Somewhere in Sicily, Vittorio Manalase (played by Jean Gabin) plays the father/leader of a criminal family clan who hires a rather prestigious outsider, Roget Sarte (played by Alain Delon) to plan a heist of a Paris jewelry show.
Despite the presence of that great, gritty actor Jean Gabin and that cupcake, Alain Delon, the characters they play are not only unsympathetic, they are uninteresting.
If you want to see what they can do in a crime caper, watch the far superior Any Number Can Win.Women like thrillers too, but this is not one for us, just for the kind of men who are satisfied if a movie has naked women, fast cars, and guns going bang-bang..
"The Sicilian Clan" stands out as a quality, first-rate, heist thriller from veteran French helmer Henri Verneuil.
No stranger to urban big-time crime sagas, Verneuil directed exciting, memorable films such as "Any Number Can Play" (1963), "The Burglars" (1971), and "Fear Over The City" (1975).
This polished melodrama about the underworld and the plotting of a major heist caper stars three heavyweight dramatic Gallic thespians; namely, Jean Gabin of "Grand Illusion" (1937), Alain Delon of "Red Sun" (1971), and Lino Ventura of "Three Tough Guys" (1974).
Aside from an opening escape from a police van, most of the action in this complicated thriller is fairly realistic and incredibly suspenseful.A notorious cop killer, Roger Sartet (Alain Delon of "Le Samourai"), convinces a Sicilian crime syndicate chieftain, Vittorio Manalese (Jean Gabin of "Action Man"), to mastermind his escape from police custody in exchange for the plans to an international jewelry show that could net millions of dollars worth of ice for the clan.
Ennio Morricone, who scored all of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, provides an interesting but inconspicuous score that beautifully and economically underlines the twists in the plot.***************SPOILER'S ALERT************************ In "The Sicilian Clan," the villains successfully pull of their caper, but they have an 'honor among thieves' falling out that results in their dying or getting sent to prison.
Delon plays a detached, ice-cold thief who is facing jail time for two cop killings when he is rescued by Gabin and his family of larcenists.
The heist was excellent, the chase conducted by the determined police-chief for Delon was as exciting as THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, and the movie would have been perfect had it ended when the hijacked airplane landed on the highway development outside New York.
*SPOILERS* You would think that the Sicilian Clan, in cahoots with their American brethren, would have been ecstatic in pulling off 50 million dollar jewel robbery.
Dear Henri Verneuil,if only more commercial crime thrillers were like The Sicilian Clan.
The film has a huge star cast - Delon, Gabin and Ventura pitted against each other.
Like all 60's heist movies, It follows a lot of plot points that that genre used.
Having just been broken out of jail, Delon proposes the robbery to Jean Gabin who heads the Sicilian Clan.
French Diamond Heist Movie.