He had a built-in breathlessness, in fact, an adopted resignation to transience and mutability that is partly an eccentric individualism and partly what Melville inherited from American mobility and obsolescence.
--David Thomson on Jean-Pierre Melville
Melville's film is an example of a European view of America, resembling in its themes such similar works as Nabokov's Lolita (1955) and Sergio Leone's C'era una volta il West (1968). Though there are some location shots of America most of the film was shot in a studio in France, with re-creations of diners, motels and gas stations that resembles those in the U. S. Jean-Paul Belmondo is a failed boxer who travels as a secretary with "the eldest of the Ferchaux" (Charles Vanel) to America. Ferchaux is one step ahead of the law, closing in on his family business in France. It is Melville's first film in color (beautifully filmed by cinematographer Henri Decae).
As usual, women have only small roles in Melville's films; there is the girlfriend Belmondo sneaks out on and the hitchhiker who tries to rob Vanel and Belmondo on their drive from New York to Louisiana. There are numerous low-key references to some of Melville's favorite American directors, including John Huston and Frank Tashlin, and there is even a visit to the house in Hoboken where Frank Sinatra grew up, as Belmondo keeps replacing rock 'n roll with Sinatra on juke boxes; George Delerue's score has a distinctly American flavor.
Melville's view of America in the sixties is emphasized by the generational clash between Vanel and Belmondo, one near the end of his career, the other still at the beginning. This film is not my favorite Melville, by any means (that would be Le Samourai, 1967) but it is a fascinating, quirky and very personal film by a French director fascinated by America.
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