I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

This Decoin effort has still got a good reputation in France.It's far from perfect though and the problem is that the screenplay hesitates between pure film noir and comedy.Besides, writer Albert Simonin is not Georges Simenon;nor is he Boileau-Narcejac or Frédéric Dard: the lines are witless and the suspense scenes almost brainless:how can we believe (and how can the head warden?)in three suicides which all take place in a prison?Five thieves steal jewels ,and,as an "alibi",burglarize a Pastis distillery: one year imprisonment . But someone is doing away with the five accomplices :and then there were two.What was possible in Lacombe's "Le Dernier des Six" -one of the men of the gang gets rid of the others to get the whole loot- is unconvincing in a jail where wardens are supposed to keep a close watch on you .You must be very gullible to believe such a story.There's an attempt at a social comment:when of the prisoners's girlfriend (Anouk Aimée) comes to visit her squeeze ,they can't say a single world in the visitors room.The gloomy atmosphere of the visitors' room does not make it a nice place to be.This is probably the best scene of the whole film.