''Backfire'' (french: Échappement libre, it, Scappamento aperto, es, A escape libre) is a 1964 French crime film directed by Jean Becker, which stars

Jean-Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (; 9 April 19336 September 2021) was a French actor and producer. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits ...

and

Jean Seberg Jean Dorothy Seberg (; ; November 13, 1938August 30, 1979) was an American actress who lived half of her life in France. Her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film ''Breathless'' immortalized her as an icon of French New Wave cinema. Seb ...

, reuniting for the first time since '' Breathless'' (1960).

Plot

A criminal organisation offers a Parisian man, David, $10,000 to transport a car across Europe. They tell him little about it except that drugs are not involved. He is accompanied by a photographer, Olga. David discovers he is smuggling gold. The two travel to Beirut then Damascus. They fall in love and David wants the gold for himself.

Cast

as David Ladislas *

as Olga Celan *

Enrico Maria Salerno Enrico Maria Salerno (September 18, 1926 – February 28, 1994) was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He was also the voice of Clint Eastwood in the Italian version of Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy films, and the voice of Ch ...

as Mario * Gert Fröbe as Fehrman * Renate Ewert as Comtesse *

Jean-Pierre Marielle Jean-Pierre Marielle (12 April 1932 – 24 April 2019) was a French actor. He appeared in more than a hundred films in which he played very diverse roles, from a banal citizen (''Les Galettes de Pont-Aven''), to a World War II hero (''Les Milles ...

as Van Houde *

Diana Lorys Diana Lorys (born ''Ana María Cazorla Vega''; 20 October 1940) is a Spanish actress. She appeared in more than fifty films since 1960. Filmography References External links * 1940 births Living people Spanish film actresses Actr ...

as Rosetta * Fernando Rey as the Lebanese policeman *

Wolfgang Preiss Wolfgang Preiss (27 February 1910 – 27 November 2002) was a German theatre, film and television actor. The son of a teacher, Preiss studied philosophy, German, and drama in the early 1930s. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlen ...

as Grenner *

Michel Beaune Michel Beaune (1933–1990) was a French actor. Filmography *1960: '' Trapped by Fear'' - Un ami de Paul (uncredited) *1961: ''Les godelureaux'' *1964: '' Backfire'' - Daniel *1970: '' The Confession'' - L'avocat *1970: '' The Time to Die'' ...

as Daniel *

Roberto Camardiel Roberto Camardiel Escudero (29 November 1917, in Alagón, Zaragoza – 15 June 1989, in Zaragoza) was a Spanish theatre director and actor. He appeared in ''Culpables'' and ''Bajo el cielo andaluz'' (1960), both directed by Arturo Ruiz-Castill ...

as Stephanidès *

Fernando Sancho Fernando Sancho Les (7 January 1916 – 31 July 1990) was a Spanish actor. Biography He was born in Zaragoza, in Aragon, Spain on 7 January 1916 and died at Hospital Militar Gómez Ulla in Madrid on 31 July 1990 from a liver failure during o ...

as Ylmaz * Giacomo Furia as Nino

Production

The film was made by the same team who had produced ''

Banana Peel A banana peel, called banana skin in British English, is the outer covering of the banana fruit. Banana peels are used as food for animals, an ingredient in cooking, in water purification, for manufacturing of several biochemical products as w ...

'' (1963). It was to have starred

Jean Louis Trintignant Jean-Louis Xavier Trintignant (; 11 December 1930 – 17 June 2022) was a French actor. He made his theatrical debut in 1951, and went on to be regarded as one of the best French dramatic actors of the post-war era. He starred in many classic fi ...

but he withdrew and was replaced by Belmondo. Filming took place from February 10 to April 7, 1964.

Costa-Gavras Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and s ...

was an assistant director.

Reception

The film was the 19th most popular movie at the French box office in 1964. In 2020 ''Fimink'' wrote "The film’s existence is ideal useless trivia to annoy people with now that the Jean Seberg biopic has come out."

References

External links

* * *
''Backfire''
at Le Film Guide
''Backfire''
at Uni France
Review of film
at New York Times 1964 films 1964 crime films French crime films Films directed by Jean Becker Films set in West Germany Films set in Greece Films set in Italy Films set in Lebanon Films set in Spain Films shot in Almería 1960s French-language films 1960s French films {{1960s-France-film-stub