Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #110983 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-02-29
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 118 minutes

Amazon.com
The classic meets the cool when dapper Jean Gabin teams up with smoldering matinee idol Alain Delon in Henri Verneuil's 1962 caper film Any Number Can Win. White-haired Gabin carries decades of French crime films with him as the career criminal who shuffles home from a five-year prison stretch and finds himself a stranger among the new high-rise apartments that have sprung up around his cozy old cottage. Aging delinquent Delon (who looks as if he stepped out of the road show of Grease under his slick hair and black leather jacket) becomes his unlikely partner in a scheme to knock off the richest casino on the Mediterranean coast, the youthful brawn to Gabin's experience and calculation. Posing as rich high rollers, they scope out the joint, and Delon woos a leggy Swedish dancer in hot-blooded courtship, a shot of sex that slows the plot but provides its own small charms thanks to Verneuil's modern continental frankness and Delon's cocky charm. It's all part of the deliberate, precise groundwork laid for the heist, a masterfully realized sequence of calm, clean professionalism. The twist and the grueling tension are saved for the inspired denouement, a delicious set piece of ironic understatement. The swinging rock & roll score and handsome black-and-white widescreen photography are tasty flourishes to this tightly scripted, economically directed crime classic. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

"Any Number Can Win" deserves better...
I have to agree about the disappointing quality of this Image DVD. Not only has Image used a mediocre print to make the transfer, they've also used an edited version of the film. It originally ran 118 min., not the 103 that this print runs. Another video company came out with a nice letterboxed vhs of this film a few years back (under its alternate title "The Big Grab"), and they had the smarts to use the full-length version. Too bad Image couldn't do the same... especially since there's some pretty nice stuff to see in those missing 15 minutes. (BTW, like some other foreign films on DVD, this one seems just a bit speeded up or time-condensed, which probably means it was a PAL to NSTC transfer.)

Good movie, bad DVD soundprint
Nothing wrong with the movie: it might be a little weak on character analysis and plot realism, but it is fun and gripping all the way, and soooo 1960s....! The dialogue is the best part ( pure Michel Audiard: you learn French slang a mile a minute!)and both Jean Gabin and Alain Delon sparkle. BUT: the sound of this DVD has a few problem, with background noises at time as if picked up by bits and pieces from different versions of the movie. I paid full price (and above, as it is a foreign item) for this DVD: where is the DVD quality I am entitled to expect ? What a pity...

Henri Verneuil in one of their best works!
Verneuil was a gifted french director and obviously he couldn't escape from the New Wave influence. Sooner or later he should make a film who woul express that sense of hopeless and disturbing underground bits of fate.
In this bitter movie about two enchanting thieves Delon and Gabin ; they have a smart plan : to steal a casino in the famous blue coast.
Everything seems under control but!
The smart script carries us to an unexpected and bitter ending.
Gabin as always stating why he was the greatest and most complete french actor in the XX century.
Fine script and dialogues.
A must in your collection!