Jean-Pierre Melville has been hailed as the father of the French gangster film.  Certainly, his gangster films are probably the films for which he is best known, on a par if not better than anything which Hollywood produced.  Yet the world of the anonymous gun-toting hoodlum occupies only a part of his oeuvre. 

The one unifying theme in Melville’s film is not crime, it is loyalty to one’s comrades and a respect for a self-imposed code of honour.  This is as apparent in Les enfants terribles (1949), a story about an almost incestuous relationship between a brother and sister, as it is in Le Samouraï (1967), his most famous film.  The same theme underpins the crime thriller Bob le flambeur (1955) and the wartime drama L’armée des ombres (1969).  This notion of loyalty and honour appears to be very much part of the Melville psyche and almost certainly derived from his involvement with the French Resistance during the Second World War.

He was born Jean-Pierre Grumbach in 1917 into a Jewish family living in Alsace, France.   He was a keen cinema enthusiast from an early age.  When he was unable to follow the traditional path to become a film director, he set up his own film production company in 1946, with a studio in Paris.  An admirer of American culture, he adopted the name Melville from his favourite author, Herman Melville. 

Melville began by making low budget films which used extensive location work, becoming the inspiration for the New Wave film directors of the late 1950s and early 1960s.  His earliest successes included Le silence de la Mer (1947) and the controversial Les enfants terribles (1949) (on which he worked with the distinguished writer Jean Cocteau).

1955 saw Melville’s first excursion into the underworld, Bob le flambeur, a compelling crime thriller which is distinguished from similar films of the time by its daring use of location filming, with great use of natural light.  The style of this film is remarkably close to that which would later be adopted by the New Wave directors (most notably François Truffaut) in their thrillers of the 1960s.

In 1961, Melville made Léon Morin, prêtre.  Starring Jean-Paul Belmonda an Emmanuelle Riva, this intense drama involving a Catholic priest and a woman admirer won Melville great critical acclaim and established him as a serious director.  In the same year, he made Le Doulos (1961), another popular gangster film which also starred Belmondo.

Melville made his most well-known film, Le Samouraï, in 1967.  This film is quintessential Melville, representing the distillation of his technique (with a remarkable eye for detail) and his philosophy (honour before everything).  With charismatic actor Alain Delon playing the lead role, the film was popular on its first release and remains one of the cult films of French cinema.

Melville’s next film, L’Armée des ombres (1969) drew heavily on the director’s war time experiences in the French Resistance.  A poignant drama with a strong performance from Lino Ventura, this is probably Melville’s greatest cinematographic achievement.

In 1970, Melville made what some regard as the ultimate French crime thriller, Le Cercle rouge, a film which brought together no less than three acting legends of French cinema (Alain Delon, Yves Montand and Bourvil). 

Melville’s final film, Le Flic (1971), which also starred Alain Delon, was another gangster film, but one which lacked the flair and impact of his earlier films. 

In 1973, Jean-Pierre Melville died.  In a career spanning 25 years, the director had made just 13 full length films, but many of these are regarded as genuine triumphs of French cinema.