The Thief of Paris

The Thief of Paris Le Voleur is a 1967 French crime film directed by Louis Malle and starring JeanPaul Belmondo as a professional thief Georges Randal at the turn of the century in Paris. The film is based on a book of the same title by Georges Darien.

In the opening scene, Georges Randal, the thief of the title, breaks into a big house and begins to steal the valuable objects on display. A series of flashbacks with occasional reversions to the present then narrates the story of Randals life. An orphan, he is raised by his uncle along with his cousin Charlotte, who grows into an attractive young woman with whom he falls in love. When Georges reaches twentyone and asks for the money his parents left him, he finds that his unscrupulous uncle has stolen it all. He is rejected as a suitor for Charlotte because he is poor. She is then betrothed by her socialclimbing father to a dimwitted aristocrat. Georges steals the fiances family jewels and from then on, motivated by a sense of justice and desire for revenge, follows a successful career as a gentleman thief, targeting the haute bourgeoisie. At the end of the film, he has achieved all his aims he is married to Charlotte, is living in his uncles house, and has recovered the money his parents left him, as well as having accumulated a fortune through his crimes. Charlotte says to him You dont need to steal any more but he replies You dont understand It is apparent that he has a compulsion to go on, knowing that he will eventually be caught. The final scene shows him boarding the train back to Paris with the haul from his latest robbery.

Source: Wikipedia