I discovered "Mise a sac" on June 1975, when I was 12. I fell in love with caper movies at this moment. I was astonished by the idea of the synopsis.
It takes place somewhere near the Alpes. A group - commando - of twelve men decide to attack an entire city during the night. In that purpose, they neutralize the police and fire stations, telephone switchboard - in 1967, mobiles did not exist - control the only entrance of the village.
The village which belongs to them. The whole city, with her banks, jewelry, post office safe, payroll of the local factory and other department stores.
These twelve thieves are not described as robbers or gangsters, but like specialized, meticulous, conscientious workers in a factory. For instance, the safe cracking team in charge of the post office and factory payroll safes, once they have finished those two targets, they receive the order thru radio to carry out towards the bank, to bring some back up to the safe cracking team in charge of the safe deposit room. It is the same in any industrial facility on earth in search of optimizing the production. They are all sympathetic, with no real exception. Rare, in this kind of movie. There is even something of "political" in this crime film, because the small town in question belongs to a very wealthy boss, the owner of the big factory, who takes advantage of the employees working for him, a very important person for this town. So, you see, this plot can be seen as some kind of metaphor against capitalism; some link that was not that obvious in the Richard Stark's novel. And the Edgar's character played by Daniel Ivernel looks really like the character in the book, written three years earlier. Each time I read it again, the depiction of Edgar is EXACTLY Ivernel. I have rarely seen such a concordance between a novel and an adapted film character.
Every one in the audience wishes them to succeed.
It takes place somewhere near the Alpes. A group - commando - of twelve men decide to attack an entire city during the night. In that purpose, they neutralize the police and fire stations, telephone switchboard - in 1967, mobiles did not exist - control the only entrance of the village.
The village which belongs to them. The whole city, with her banks, jewelry, post office safe, payroll of the local factory and other department stores.
These twelve thieves are not described as robbers or gangsters, but like specialized, meticulous, conscientious workers in a factory. For instance, the safe cracking team in charge of the post office and factory payroll safes, once they have finished those two targets, they receive the order thru radio to carry out towards the bank, to bring some back up to the safe cracking team in charge of the safe deposit room. It is the same in any industrial facility on earth in search of optimizing the production. They are all sympathetic, with no real exception. Rare, in this kind of movie. There is even something of "political" in this crime film, because the small town in question belongs to a very wealthy boss, the owner of the big factory, who takes advantage of the employees working for him, a very important person for this town. So, you see, this plot can be seen as some kind of metaphor against capitalism; some link that was not that obvious in the Richard Stark's novel. And the Edgar's character played by Daniel Ivernel looks really like the character in the book, written three years earlier. Each time I read it again, the depiction of Edgar is EXACTLY Ivernel. I have rarely seen such a concordance between a novel and an adapted film character.
Every one in the audience wishes them to succeed.