A Man Named Rocca

In this cold-blooded crime tale, a man named Roberto La Rocca (Jean-Paul Belmondo) goes to Marseille to help his friend Xavier (Pierre Vaneck), who has been imprisoned after a frame-up by his associate. Unflappably cool, Rocca sets out for some good old-fashioned revenge-and his own piece of the action. Teaming the newly-minted superstar Belmondo (Breathless), debuting director Jean Becker (One Deadly Summer) and a source novel by José Giovanni (Le trou, Classe tous risques), 1961's A Man Named Rocca is a noir gem riding the crest of the radical French New Wave. A decade later, Giovanni would go on to direct his own adaptation, La scoumoune a.k.a Hit Man, starring Belmondo in the same role.