The Sicilian Clan

Cast as the patriarch of a spaghetti-eating Sicilian family who are crooks to a man, the once formidable Gabin - stout, white-haired and now a bit past it - mostly sits back and glowers while the younger members of the cast squabble, lust and plot a caper involving the hijack of a plane-load of jewels. He finally rouses himself from his lethargy to defend his honour by executing Delon, a Corsican who had the temerity to play around with his daughter-in-law. Verneuil, not for the first time, tries to direct like Jean-Pierre Melville and fails to make it, though the action scenes are passable, and Henri Decaë's moody photography is rather more than that.