Le Doulos

Le Doulos is a 1962 black-and-white French-Italian crime film written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, adapted from Pierre Lesou's novel of the same name. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Serge Reggiani lead the cast, which also includes Jean Desailly and Michel Piccoli. Intertitles at the start of the film explain that the title refers both to a kind of hat and to underworld slang for a police informant.

Shot in 1962 at Melville's Jenner studio in Paris and on location in the city, the film counted Volker Schlöndorff among its assistant directors. It was released in English-speaking countries as The Finger Man, though video editions kept the French title. Initially met with mixed reactions, it has since come to be regarded as one of Melville's canonical works, cited by Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino among the finest gangster films ever made.