Ça Va Être Ta Fête (1961)

This French-made action movie is closer in spirit to American detective thrillers than to the spy thrillers that came after it -- for starters, it's in black-and-white; and it also features a score by the Jazz Group of Paris and pianist Martial Solal that's constantly calling attention to itself. Laced with the hard-boiled dialogue, as well as more suggestive male/female banter than one could necessarily have gotten away with in America in 1961, and the wry French sense of humor that runs through it, the movie ends up as a kind of Euro-answer to the sort of fiction that Mickey Spillane was generating in print, as well as the crime/caper movies that Hollywood was putting out in the 1950s, mostly as B-pictures. And fans of the latter, or of Solal's playing -- which is very prominent on the soundtrack -- may well want to give Ça Va Être Ta Fête a look. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide