Thieves After Dark (France, 1984) 98 min color DIR: Samuel Fuller. PROD: Antoine Gannagé. SCR: Samuel Fuller, Oliver Beer, adapted from Olivier Beer’s novel. MUSIC: Ennio Morricone. DOP: Philippe Rousselot. CAST: Véronique Jannot, Bobby Di Cicco, Victor Lanoux, Stephane Audran, Micheline Presle, Claude Chabrol, Christa Lang.
After a long absence from doing tough guy pictures with outrageous ingredients, Samuel Fuller made a comeback in 1980 with his labour of love, the war epic The Big Red One. His subsequent film, White Dog (1982) was met with controversy, and the colourful writer-director permanently relocated to France. He remained active for the remainder of his career in appearances for documentaries, or playing cameo roles in films by other directors who cast him in tribute for inspiring them, showing that his own screen persona was as colourful as his films.
Fuller had made two more films in the twilight of his career: the most obscure effort of his career is this daft caper, which is nonetheless a valuable part of Fuller’s canon. Bobby Di Cicco (one of the young soldiers in The Big Red One) is an out-of-work cellist who teams up with a spunky girl also out of work (played by Véronique Jannot) to rob the homes of the employment agency bureaucrats that humiliated them.
Sadly, this lightweight fun never had a proper North American release. It did play at a 1998 Fuller retrospective at Cinematheque, however in French with no subtitles. Otherwise, English copies were only available on VHS bootlegs. This is too bad, because it is prime Fuller- meaning that it has wildly unpredictable turns, lethargic single-shot character scenes, and sprinklings of the outright bizarre. Best is Fuller’s own cameo as a jewel fencer with an eyepatch who is upset that people keep interrupting this cheap video version of Camille playing on his TV set. Also in the “inspired casting” department is French New Wave director Claude Chabrol as a lecherous employment agent who provides the fateful turn.
Originally published in Volume #1, Issue #1. At this remove, the film is still very hard to find, but well worth tracking down.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.