Le Reptile on France 3, 2:30 p.m.: Kirk Douglas is a wonderful scoundrel in this Western masterpiece

A huge actor with a fabulous filmography, touring with the greatest, Kirk Douglas has very often played positive characters, even if sometimes ambiguous, he also played villainous figures on the screen much less often, in any case less friendly. But in all cases equally difficult and glorious roles. Amazing evidence with a fabulous reptile broadcast by France 3 this December 30 at 2:30 p.m.

story? Paris Pittman, manipulator and great charmer, in federal prison in Arizona for armed robbery. The $500,000 he hid before his arrest, as well as the brilliant plan he devised to escape and recover the loot, is a big part of his popularity with the other inmates.

New prison warden Woodward Lopeman (the excellent Henry Fonda) also has ideas in his head: Pitman’s charisma may help him rally the inmates to reform the penitentiary. However, their cooperation has a limit. Each has no other purpose than to satisfy his own interests…

A beautiful picaresque, scatological and anarchist fable

Coming from the author of such classics as The Adventures of the Elegant Mrs. Muir and The Barefoot Countess, Reptile is a completely atypical work by Joseph L. In Mankiewicz’s filmography, and in short, almost atypical. With this film, he delivers a picaresque, cynical, scatological and anarchist tale. The film is also set during a period of significant aesthetic upheaval in the American film industry.

The Western genre, previously very codified, underwent profound changes, especially under the influence of the Transalpine Western, of which Sergio Leone remains one of the best representatives, who in 1969 signed what is considered the definitive Italian Western: It Was Once Western.

That same year, Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Horde was the first nod to the Italian Western, and also, in some ways, the genre’s death knell. In 1970, still pursuing these aesthetic rebellions, Abraham Polonsky’s Willy Boy was an Indian drama, and a year after Reptile, Robert Altman signed John McCabe’s anti-Western.

However, unlike his colleagues, Joseph L. Mankiewicz does not want to give his film a twilight tone, but wants to emphasize the tale of the evil of human nature populated by crooks (this is also the first meaning of the title in VO; “crook” is a crook), where every (twisted) movement is allowed to achieve his goals.

And in this little game, Kirk Douglas does wonders, not forgetting the deliciously immoral ending, which we’ll keep quiet about so as not to spoil the movie for you. fabulous.

Reptile to see (or review!) this December 30 on France 3 at 2:30 p.m.