Army of Shadows

Legendary gangster movie director Jean-Pierre Melville turned his familiar crime film iconography on its head with his gravely personal drama about the early days of the French Resistance in World War II. Lino Ventura, a gangster movie icon, plays Resistance leader Philippe Gerbier with an observant stillness and unsentimental pragmatism, and Simone Signoret is almost regal as his most devoted deputy, running their operations in the underworld of occupied France. Melville directs the tense, grim thriller, adapted from Joseph Kessel's fictionalized novel about French Resistance fighters in 1942, with the same rigorous, deliberate, coolly observant style of his best gangster thrillers. But if the meticulously planned and executed missions play like heists with higher stakes (the iconic trenchcoats help blur the lines), these "gangsters" are the force of justice and freedom, while the cops are the occupying German soldiers and Vichy collaborators. The vision is more fatalistic than any of his crime classics, a grim tragedy of national heroes working and dying in the shadows. Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel and Claude Mann co-star as fellow soldiers in the underground movement.

A well-informed commentary by Jean-Pierre Melville historian Ginette Vincendeau weaves French history, Melville's life and career and well-observed aesthetic insights into a dense lecture of an audio track — exactly what we've come to expect from Criterion. The second disc is highlighted by the excellent 30-minute French documentary "Melville et L'Armee des Ombres," featuring new interviews with cast, crew and others (including director and film historian Bertrand Tavernier, who began his career as Melville's assistant), and a 4-minute archival featurette shot on the set of the film in 1968 for French TV. Also features extended interviews with cinematographer Pierre Lhomme and film editor Francoise Bonnot, an informative illustration of the restoration process that Lhomme supervised, archival interview clips and the rare 1944 documentary short "Le journal de la Resistance," shot during the final days of Germany's occupation of France, plus a booklet with essays and interview excerpts with Melville.