L'armée des ombres = Army of shadows
(DVD)

D'apres le livre de [After the novel by] Joseph Kessell.

Originally released as a French motion picture in 1969.

Booklet contains the essays "Out of the shadows" by Amy Taubin, "Melville's French Resistance" by Robert O. Paxton, and "Melville on Melville: 'Army of Shadows'" interview [with Jean-Pierre Melville] by Rui Nogueria

Directeur de la photographie, Pierre L'Homme ; montage [editor], Françoise Bonnot ; musique, Eric De Marsan ; decors, Théobald Meurisse ; conseiller aux dialogues ét́rangers, Howard Vernon.

Lino Ventura (Philippe Gerbier), Paul Meurisse (Luc Jardie), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Jean-François Jardie), Simone Signoret (Mathilde), Claude Mann (Claude 'Le Masque'), Paul Crauchet (Félix), Christian Barbier ('Le Bison'), Serge Reggiani, André Dewavrin, Alain Dekok, Alain Mottet, Alain Libolt, Jean-Marie Robain, Albert Michel, Denis Sadier, Georges Sellier, Marco Perrin, Hubert de Lapparent, Colin Mann, Anthony Stuart, Michel Fretault.

L'Armee des Ombres is a stark and unvarnished story about Resistance fighters in Vichy France in 1942-43 when the French leadership allowed the Nazis to occupy the country. The members of this army are cold, hungry, desperate men and women, with false names and no addresses, who can be betrayed in an instant by a traitor or an accident. They know they will probably die. A meditation on the nature of resistance and the price of courage, these heroes can save their own country only by cutting themselves apart from it. Entangled in the political turmoil engulfing France in the wake of May '68--as a result received poorly there--the film was not distributed in the US until 2006.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; 1.0 Dolby Digital mono., 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo; widescreen presentation, aspect ratio 1.85:1; enhanced for 16:9 televisions; new high-definition digital transfer.

In French with optional subtitles in English.