Sat 23 Apr 2011
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: DOLORES HITCHENS – Fools Gold (Book & Film: BAND OF OUTSIDERS, 1964).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[5] Comments
DOLORES HITCHENS – Fools Gold. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1958. Paperback reprint: Pocket #1239, 1959.
Film: BAND OF OUTSIDERS. Columbia Pictures, 1964. French title: Bande à part. Anna Karina, Danièle Girard, Louisa Colpeyn, Chantal Darget, Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur. Director: Jean-Luc Godard.
Very similar in vein to Rififi in New York [reviewed here ], there’s Fools Gold, by Dolores Hitchens, a nasty piece of work about a nasty piece of work names Skip, barely graduated from juvenile delinquency, sho has enthralled a cute blonde named Karen and a dim ne’er-do-well named Eddie with whom he hopes to pull a major caper.
But this thing has wheels within wheels, and when a big-time professional crook gets wind of the deal and decides to hijack it, that’s only the beginning of the complications that ensue.
I never read any Hitchens before, but I found this quite well done. She has a good feel for letting the characters shape the plot, and she isn’t bothered by a bit of clutter and untidiness as things play out in a nicely cluttered and untidy finale.
Fools Gold was turned into a rather unlikely film called Bande à part (Band of Outsiders) in 1964 by the legendary and quite mad Jean-Luc Godard, who threw out half the plot but stayed surprisingly faithful to the rest.
Bande stars Sami Frey, Claude Brasseur and the lovely Anna Karina as the aspiring felons, and it’s played out on actual locations rather than sets, giving the thing that rough, seat-of-the-pants look typical of Godard and perfect for a gritty crime movie.
There’s also a bit more attention to the characters here. Hitchens’ cast was well-drawn and believable, but — how shall put this? — you know how in pornography, the characters think about sex all the time? Of course you do.
Well in crime novels the characters are pretty well occupied with crime. So it is in Hitchens’ novel, but not so in Godard’s film, Here, they have their secret thoughts, playful moments and private ambitions. And sometimes they break out of the story just to be young.
The result is a film worth coming back to: mysterious, exciting, and highly satisfying.
April 24th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
Have never read the book. Or seen any detailed study of it and the film, before.
BAND OF OUTSIDERS is one of the most prestigious of all French films. It is mainly an “experimental movie”. I have no idea what reaction it would get, from an audience geared to watch a “heist film”!
The film is haunting in its mood. The song on the subway is especially moving.
Strange note: was watching a Coffeemate commercial on the Weather Channel last month, waiting for the forecast. Could have sworn that the commercial included a re-make of the famous Madison dance number from BAND OF OUTSIDERS.
Really odd.
April 24th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Dan’s review made the film totally irresistible. I had no idea that it was based on a Hitchens novel. (She’s an author totally forgotten now, but in her day she was very prolific and — one assumes — quite popular.)
In any case the Criterion DVD of BAND OF OUTSIDERS is in the mail on its way to me.
Running this blog is very expensive!
April 27th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
But what is mere lucre, when there’s education to share! I’ve been looking for another Godard I might actually enjoy, and the films up through CONTEMPT seem more likely to fill that bill than ONE PLUS ONE onward, where self-indulgence really took its toll…crime-drama fans have little reason to kick about BREATHLESS, after all, and that one even has Godard doing what I took to be self-parody…till I cast my memory back to ONE PLUS ONE (and the telling MONTY PYTHON parody of Godard by then).
April 27th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
And Dolores Hitchens is someone I think I’ve missed altogether till now.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
[…] Dolores Hitchens’ Fools Gold [reviewed here ] and still on the book-to-movie bent, I visited a novel called The Five Fragments by George […]