Les morfalous (1984)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Henri Verneuil

Writers:

Michel Audiard (dialogue)
Michel Audiard (screenplay)

Release Date:

28 March 1984 (France)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Drama | Thriller | War

Plot:

April 5, 1943: a battalion of the Foreign Legion arrives in El Ksour, Tunisia, to escort a fortune in gold bars to the home front...

Plot Keywords:

Gold | Foreign Legion | 1943 | Tunisia | Sergeant

Cast

Jean-Paul Belmondo	...	Sgt. Pierre Augagneur
Jacques Villeret	...	Béral
Michel Constantin	...	Adjudant Édouard Mahuzard
Michel Creton	...	Boissier
Matthias Habich	...	Karl
François Perrot	...	François Laroche-Fréon, le directeur de la banque
Maurice Auzel	...	Borzik
Gérard Buhr	...	L'officier du camp de ravitaillement
Junior John David
Robert Lombard	...	M. Chanterelle
Pierre Semmler	...	Capt. Ulrich Dieterle (as Peter Semler)
Caroline Sihol	...	Mme Chanterelle
Marie Laforêt	...	Hélène Laroche-Fréon

Also Known As:

Die Glorreichen (West Germany) [de]
Os Abutres (Brazil) (cable TV title) [pt]
Rufianes y tramposos (Spain) [es]
To arpahtiko (Greece) [el]
Zafer benimdir (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]

Runtime:

95 min | France:106 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | German

Color:

Color (Fujicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Germany:16 | Netherlands:12

Company:

Carthago Films S.a.r.l.

Trivia:

5th highest grossing movie of its year in France but after starting fast, dropped quickly because of negative word of mouth.

Goofs:

Plot holes: Gold weighs 19300kg/m³. It would be absolutely impossible for two persons to move a cart with approximately two m³ of gold by hand.

Movie Connections:

References Kelly's Heroes (1970)

Jean-Paul Belmondo Is Fine In Played Out War Movie

At one point in Les Morfalous, Jean-Paul Belmondo's character tells the warrant officer: "I'll be frank, Edouard. It's not polite to mock us." Pause. "It's not polite." Although this war story seems often to be a bargain basement version of Kelly's Heroes, it has its moments. Another moment comes when the bank director's wife, observing her husband for the last time, gets a chance to make one really mean comment that is a play on words. Those moments do not include the cheap explosions that do no damage to the Tunisian town set where most of the action takes place in. Les Morfalous is the last of seven (by my count in IMDb)pairings of Belmondo and director Henri Verneuil. Belmondo in this movie seems as spry as ever, fighting, running and chewing the scenery. But age was catching up to him, which shows in close ups. Verneuil, a great action director, decided to end his career, after this movie, by making a series of dramatic movies about the Turkish genocide of the Armenians during World War One. I think he made the right decision, by ending his career making movies he cared about. Les Morafalous is a star vehicle that lacks the usual production gloss of Belmondo's movies in the 60s and 70s. The version I saw on the NYC CUNY Channel had subtitles but the print was grainy and washed out. Even a great print could not hide this movie's flaws: cheap action, choppy editing and too many dull characters. Belmondo is fine, the actor who plays the German officer is fine, the bank director's wife is very good looking and on target when she lists the mistakes Belmondo's sergeant made. In the end, Les Morafalous is a tired movie with too small a budget and not enough interesting action for a war movie.