Review for And Hope to Die (René Clément)

‘And Hope to Die’ is another of the four concurrently released Rene Clement movies from Studio Canal this month. It’s a humdinger too, full of excitement and action but with some real laugh-aloud humour too. Clement is a master of characterisation and ‘AHTD’ gives him fantastic scope to maximise on that.


Based on the David Goodis novel, ‘Black Friday’ it’s a series of plots within plots that culminates in one of the most fun caper / gangster movies I’ve seen in a long time.


The film starts with a man on the run. Having photographed a parade of gypsy children on a beach from a plane, and having lost control and killed them all (this all told through flash frame black and white photos) Tony (Jean-Louis Trintignant), referred to as ‘Froggy’ for most of the film, arrives in Canada to start a new life. However, no sooner doe she arrive than he is facing assassination from a group of vengeful gypsies who aim to take his life with a foot-long switch-blade.


But Tony isn’t about to let that happen. He escapes and re-boards the train just as it’s leaving the station, jumping off half-a-mile down the road. Before long he is being chased across a bridge in mid-day traffic by the gypsies in hot pursuit, Tony on foot and they in a car. It’s a breath-taking chase and a great way to open this intriguing picture. But if you thought this was the main plot, think again.


Fleeing for his life Tony makes his way into a deserted bubble-shaped Exhibition Hall and leaps onto some escalators. He hears a shot, which he presumes is intended for himself, and then turns to see another man falling to the floor. He reaches the man just in time to be handed an envelope full of cash before the poor guy dies. Heading back up the escalator with the money he is immediately captured by the hoods who had killed the man who take him prisoner (after all he witnessed a shooting) to see what ‘Charley’ wants to do with him.


Handcuffed he manages to jettison one of the hoods from the moving car who is badly wounded (and later dies). When they arrive at a remote, outback location he meets ‘Charley’ (the charismatic Robert Ryan); a middle-aged hood surrounded by his eager but potentially stupid gang. But before long ‘Froggy’ endears himself to the group and especially to the group’s two ladies, eventually joining the gang in preference to facing the gypsies on their planned caper – the kidnapping of a major criminal’s daughter.


This involves an audacious and meticulously planned break-in culminating in the use of fire-truck’s ladder extensions to take them from one sky-scraper to another. But things do not necessarily go quite as planned.



The narrative, of course, is quite secondary to the relationships and these are played out with some outstanding performances, a feature of Clement’s work. Robert Ryan is magnificently cast as an old school philosophical cowboy type who can be as hard as nails and as soft as grease, always perfectly read by Tony.

The haunting music by Francis Lai (A Man and a Woman) is excellent – slightly reminiscent of Morricone’s spaghetti western scores and the colour cinematography (Edmond Richard who was also director of photography on Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Orson Welles' Chimes at Midnight) is utterly top notch.

Fans of Fernch cinema might also be interested to note that Jean-Jaques Beineix (Betty Blue) worked alongside Clement as assistant director.

The whole thing exudes class. A great script with excellent dialogue (I don’t even speak French but the sub-titles worked a treat), a superb cast and wonderful exterior cinematography. It also looks and feels like a few bob was spent on making this as good as it is.
The transfer is really good too though I believe only available on DVD.

There are, disappointingly, no extras but you shouldn’t let that deter you from picking this one up. A great start to the DVD year!