French-Armenian playwright and director Henri Verneuil, also an Academy Award and Palme d’Or nominee, took it upon himself to adapt Auguste Le Breton’s crime novel Le clan des Siciliens. Upon buying the rights and signing a deal with 20th Century Fox, Verneuil wrote the screenplay together with Pierre Pélégri and José Giovanni. Filmed in two versions, one in English and the other one in French, The Sicilian Clan is a caper film that revolves around jewel thief Roger Sartet who plans to pull off a diamond heist with the help of mafia boss Vittorio Manalese, while trying to escape Chief Inspector Le Goff.
What Verneuil managed to do with his gangster film is get the three prominent leading men of that era–Jean Gabin, Lino Ventura and Alain Delon—to share the big screen for the very first time. This was certainly a contributing factor to The Sicilian Clan’s success, with it becoming the third most popular film in France in the year 1969. Other factors are without a doubt the film’s score composed by the legendary Ennio Morricone, the impressive cinematography done by esteemed director of photography Henri Decaë, as well as the plethora of exciting twist and turns that the filmmaker provides us with.
In 1972 a neophyte Spanish media company created a rare platform for artists to explore classic genre imagery with a sophisticated cinematic sensibility.
