Man Named Rocca, A (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Jean BeckerRelease Date(s)
1961 (July 14, 2026)Studio(s)
Da.Ma. Cinematografica/Les Films dy Cyclope (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
A French crime-thriller starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, A Man Named Rocca (Un nommé La Rocca, 1961), alternately A Man Called Rocca—not to be confused with The Man Called Flintstone—is based on the 1958 novel L’Ecommunié by José Giovanni, whose books were also the basis of such classics of French cinema as Le Trou (directed by Jacques Backer), Classe tous risques (by Claude Sautet), Le Deuxième souffle (Jean-Pierre Melville) and others, with Giovanni usually also writing the screenplays for those films. Later, Giovanni became a director himself and, in that capacity, made La Scoumoune (1972), a remake of A Man Named Rocca, with Belmondo playing the same part as before. Kino Lorber has also released that title to Blu-ray, and a review of that will soon follow.
Ex-gangster Roberto La Rocca (Belmondo) learns from “The Mexican” (Pedro Serano) that his friend Xavier Adé (Pierre Veneck), apparently another semi-reformed gangster, is on trial for a murder he did not commit. La Rocca travels to Marseilles where he seduces Maud (Béatrice Altariba), mistress of gangster Villanova (Nico), whom La Rocca and Xavier’s sister, Geneviève (Christine Kaufmann), suspect is behind the framing of Xavier.
After confronting Villanova, La Rocca shooting him squarely in the head—amusingly, when his underlings lift his lifeless corpse from a card table, a two of spades gummily sticks to his forehead—and La Rocca takes over the gangster’s gambling club for no clear purpose. Instead, the story pivots as he becomes involved in an unrelated crime after a gang of American deserters (led by Michel Constantin, pretending not to speak French well) threaten Genevieve over protection money, this landing La Rocca in the same prison as Xavier, where the former plans to... do what, exactly?
Directed by Jean Becker (b. 1933), son of director Jacques, A Man Named Rocca is generally good, but it plays a bit like a series of set pieces, with big chunks of the novel missing, even though Giovanni’s book isn’t particularly long. (The original French edition ran 189 minutes.) Not included in the narrative is La Rocca’s seduction of Maud, for instance; the audience never learns anything about how they met. With the Mexican, La Rocca says he’ll get to Villanova through his mistress, and after a brief cut of La Rocca plane’s he’s already in bed with her, apparently weeks later. More to the point, it’s unclear at times why characters make the (largely self-destructive) choices they do. Another contradiction: La Rocca’s shooting of Villanova is nearly bloodless, hardly realistic, yet later in the film is a very graphic injury, explicitly lingered upon.
These are not necessarily bad things, but the film tends to move from one series of events (e.g., La Rocca confronting Villanova and taking over the gambling den) to something entirely unrelated (Geneviève being threatened by American racketeers) without much in the way of transition. As such, the movie positions Belmondo’s character as a kind of fixer, cool as a cucumber and rather ambivalent to it all, doing his best to solve one problem after another. After he lands in prison, luckily for him, the same prison where Xavier is serving his time, it’s unclear what his game is. Was La Rocca deliberately trying to get to Xavier? Does he have some kind of long-term escape plan for them both? What’s happening onscreen is almost always interesting, but A Man Named Rocca sure meanders.
The movie has many strong points, however. The too-short vignette involving the shakedown by the Americans, including some stolen shots on the nighttime streets of Marseilles, are unusually effective, Constantin accompanied by three enormous thugs that aren’t messing around, knifing and throwing violent punches with impunity. What’s a stock scene in myriad gangster movies—soliciting “protection” money—has an unusual air of authenticity here, though Constantin’s broken French is, conversely, unintentionally funny; he’s emphatically French, his features anything but American.
Cool, detached, and masculine almost to the point of misogyny, Belmondo was fast becoming the leading man of the French New Wave but also more standard, commercial fare, which this somewhat straddles. His performance, and flashes of imagination throughout, keep A Man Named Rocca interesting throughout. Giovanni’s overall dissatisfaction led to his decision to remake it years later, but on its own terms the movie mostly works.
Licensed from StudioCanal, which provided a 2021 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative, Kino’s Blu-ray of A Man Named Rocca looks great in 1.66:1 widescreen, the black-and-white image notably crisp and sharp, with excellent blacks. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono, French only) is also above average, and supported by good (and optional) English subtitles. The disc itself is Region “A” encoded.
Extras are limited to a rather casual audio commentary chat with mystery writer Max Allan Collins and film historian Heath Holland.
Not great but pretty good, A Man Named Rocca is recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV