Huievest
Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.
CrawlerChunky
In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.
Mehdi Hoffman
There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
gerrythree
"Greed In The Sun" is a 1964 movie that is a time capsule, a view of a world long gone, where expatriate French nationals live and work in a heavily Arabic North African country. This movie was filmed in part in Marrakesh, Morocco, where at one point the camera pans across the primitive tanneries in that city as the characters walk to their destination. In the movie, the city is identified as Le Moussorah, a name that exists only on the hotel sign and mile markers made as set dressing for this movie. The movie itself deals with the truck drivers who transport goods through the desert and over mountainous terrain . Those drivers include Jean-Paul Belmondo and Lino Ventura, playing buddies who work for Gert Frobe's trucking company.Gert Frobe's character has the best lines in the movie, but he vanishes after arranging for a newly hired driver to take a mysterious shipment of goods to Salem. Rocco, Belmondo's character, steals the truck and Frobe pays Marec (Lino Ventura) to recover the truck. Marec is not very good at that job, another company truck driver, Mitch- Mitch, helps him out three separate times when Marec has problems. Why Frobe did not hire the more competent Mitch-Mitch for the job is anyone's guess.In "Greed In The Sun", the female characters are treated as second-class humans, dummies good for sex and not much else. The Arab characters are treated worse, lackeys there to serve their European masters. For that matter, the drivers don't come out looking very good either. Marec is a thug who demolishes a roadside store and Rocco is a greedy pig.In France, there is on sale a Blu-ray version of "Greed In The Sun", a new restoration where the black and white photography looks crystal clear. French only though, and no optional English subtitles. For one scene at the end, there are large, old fashioned hard coded French subtitles, which indicates to me that the original camera negative is missing. Otherwise, we would have new subtitles for this short segment.The American DVD release of "Greed In The Sun" is a disaster, using an older print, having large white hard coded English subtitles. The subtitles themselves leave out stuff and have errors. I made subtitles using English subtitles from an Internet site where the subs had exact timing but the translation and grammar were off.The 1960s were the peak decade for director Henri Verneuil, a decade he ended with his great crime film, "The Sicilian Clan", a movie that also starred Lino Ventura. Thanks to computer technology, I was able to make a DVD of "Greed In The Sun" that combined the Blu-ray movie with optional on-off English subtitles in a nicer font, subs that I edited.In this movie, the scenes that stand out for me are when the trucks drive through the center of the city identified as Le Moussorah. You see swarms of people walking all over the plaza with cars parked in a group on one side. 1964 and the location unit filming here showed how crowded this Southern Algeria city already was. The place looked really depressing, a giant flea market look to it, baking under the sun. No wonder people who live in crowded places like that look to migrate to nicer locations.
JohnHowardReid
Due to some slip-up, this film was not copyrighted in the U.S.A. The film was made by S.N.E. Gaumont—Trianon Productions—UltraFilm. In the U.S.A. and other countries it was released through Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer. New York opening at the Apollo: 18 August 1965. U.S. release: 18 August 1965. Australian release: 28 October 1966. Sydney opening at the Capitol (ran one week). 122 minutes (U.S.); 109 minutes (Australia).SYNOPSIS: A truck, loaded with contraband guns and ammunition, is hijacked on its way from Morocco to Nigeria.COMMENT: Here we find the screenwriter of "Cloportes" (Michel Audiard) and the star (Lino Ventura) in a follow-up to "The Wages of Fear", brilliantly directed by Henri Verneuil. For once in his working life, Jean-Paul Belmondo is brilliantly and appropriately cast as a villain. The movie features good location camera-work, with plenty of solid action and seat-gripping excitement. It has only one demerit: The fade-out is a little disappointing. Otherwise, in my book anyway, "Greed in the Sun" rates as top suspense entertainment.
pete36
Some spoilers aheadYou can't go wrong with major French stars as Ventura and Belmondo, impeccable direction by Henri Verneuil, sharp dialogue and script from Michel Audiard and a sweeping score from Georges Delerue. A movie when men still were men and where women are merely playthings or just not to be trusted. But there are some twists, most notably when Belmondo, to slow down his opponents, tells the owner of a filling station that the pursuant truck team is a gay couple ! A very daring thing for such a classic macho action flick from 1964. And there is much more to be discovered in the multi-layered fast-paced dialogue, courtesy of specialist Michel Audiard. Almost impossible to translate directly into English, you have to get the original version and have more then a basic mastery of the French language. It was filmed entirely on location, (as far as I can deduce the Moroccan desert, or could it be former French Tunisia ?) and all stunt-work with the big trucks is of course for real. There exists a colorized version but it is in the terrible flat pan-and-scan format and gives it the look of a seventies' TV-movie. The original sharp-focused black-and-white copy fits much better the story and characters. Recently French public TV also choose to air this version in its scope format. Director Verneuil went on to make another five movies with Belmondo with the final one "Les Morfalous" in 1984, again set in the desert but now during WW II and the truck being replaced by a German tank !If you like this try another of those French sixties buddymovies as "Les Aventuriers" also with Ventura but now with that other French superstar, Alain Delon.
peter-1061
Belmondo and Ventura are top-notch in this great Saharan adventure. A network of French long-distance truckers live the macho life in the Arabic western (I think) Sahara. When young Belmondo steals a truck with $100,000 of contraband and takes off across the desert and mountains, the chase begins. If you've seen The Wages of Fear (and you'd better!), this will recall that great adventure, although the seat-of-your pants tension is replaced by the back-and-forth fortunes and fun of the pursuit. But it's the same rough-man frontier atmosphere, same epic scale of adventure, same wide-screen memorable scenery in stunning locations, same big trucks, same handful of beautiful females. I'm sure the film is hard to find in English (I saw it on french TV), but watch it if you find it. You won't regret it.