The Upper Hand (1966)

• Year: 1966
• Released: 02 Mar 1966
• Country: France, Italy, West Germany
• Adwords: 1 nomination
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060349/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_upper_hand
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: French
• Genre: Crime, Drama
• Runtime: 86 min
• Writer: Auguste Le Breton, Denys de La Patellière, Alphonse Boudard
• Director: Denys de La Patellière
• Cast: Jean Gabin, Gert Fröbe, George Raft

6.1/10

The Upper Hand Storyline

Paul Berger, an ageing criminal and nightclub owner, pulls the strings behind an international gold smuggling ring. With the help of well-connected Walter, his right-hand man, Paul recruits men with no criminal record to do the dirty work under the nose of the police. However, the mob is onto them, wanting a piece of the action, and as if that weren’t enough, there’s a snitch in their midst: an undercover US Treasury Department agent. When a partner meets his brutal end, Paulo decides to take matters into his own hands. Now, the guns have the final say.

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The Upper Hand Movie Reviews

another great Gabin gangster movie

I must say I haven’t seen this movie for a very long time. Having a very fine souvenir, I decided to watch it again, and what a pleasure. If you like french gangster movies with our Jean Gabin, powerful slang dialogs and 60’s design, this one is really for you. Without forgetting George Raft facing Gabin. And Fröbe, Bozzuffi, Ceccaldi, Brasseur, Mireille Darc (so sexy), Nadja Tiller …

And international sequences in Japan, London, Germany.

A very special palm to Claudio Brook, very very convincing.

Indeed, a powerful french gangster movie.

As gentleman Philippe wrote, so few reviewers?

Rififi #4

By all accounts Auguste le Breton led a very colourful life. His novels depicting the Parisian underworld were based upon personal knowledge and possess an authenticity which made them eminently suitable for film. Jules Dassin’s ‘Rififi chez des hommes’ of 1955 is an undisputed masterpiece of the genre but three subsequent attempts to capitalise on the ‘Rififi’ name have proved pretty dismal, the last of which is this one. Breton’s style happened to suit the ‘mature’ Gabin but of the four Breton adaptations in which he starred this is undoubtedly the worst. Gabin is going through the motions here as a well-groomed, well-tailored low life whose international smuggling operation is threatened by an equally well-groomed, well-tailored low life played by George Raft doing his customary impression of a plank. The script calls upon Raft at one stage to flip a coin which is what he does best. Claudio Brook plays a US Treasury agent which is a far cry from his ‘Simon of the Desert’ for Bunuel. Gert Froebe makes the best of it and Najda Tiller who had previously appeared in ‘Rififi chez des femmes’ has a crummy role. This travelogue takes us from Paris to London and Tokyo to the accompaniment of a terminally irritating score by Georges Garvarentz in a film aimed at the lowest common denominator. In his previous film, also directed by Denys de la Patilliere, Gabin had given a standout performance as a misanthropic alcoholic but his compulsion to work alas led to more misses than hits in his later years. This does not seem to matter for as Michael Caine once observed: “People only remember the good ones”. Just as well!

Times Change But Gabin Doesn’t

No, it’s not Panama; Paname is slang for Paris. It’s from another August le Breton movie, and it stars Jean Gabin, with a big role for Gert Frobe and a featured part for a coin-flipping George Raft. If Paramount was producing Geezer westerns in the States, then perhaps this was a Geezer Gangster flick.

Gabin and Frobe have a racket smuggling gold into Tokyo and antiquities out of Japan. They use people with no police records and have settled on Claudio Brook, a reporter. What they don’t know is that he is an undercover agent investigating their racket, and one that Frobe has smuggling spare parts into Cuba. As he worms his way into Gabin’s graces, some one is trying to muscle in on the racket, blowing up associates in Munich and London. Frobe wants to abandon the Tokyo run for another, better idea. Gabin wants to keep going until the new one is paying. Nadja Tiller, Frobe’s wife and Gabin’s ex-lover, wants to fight.

It’s still le Breton’s world as first seen in Jules Dassin’s movie, only bigger, brighter and in wide screen. Little fish have gotten bigger and attracted the notice of big fish on both sides of the law, but it’s still guys with some rules against guys with none. The time for such movies was passing. The New Wave had no use for movies like this, but so long as as Gabin was willing to appear in them, they would still keep making them; and I will still watch and enjoy them fifty years later.