Michel Poiccard s a youthful delinquent who models himself to the actor Humphrey Bogart. After stealing a car in Marseille, Michel shoots and kills a policeman who has followed him onto a country road. Penniless and on the run from the police, he turns in love with Patricia, an American student and aspiring journalist, who sells the New York Herald Tribune on the boulevards of Paris. The ambivalent Patricia unwittingly hides him in her apartment as he simultaneously tries to seduce her and call in a loan to fund their escape to Italy. They passed a lot of time together also sharing criminal life and Patricia says she is pregnant cause of him. She learns that Michel is on the run when questioned by the police. She decides to betray him, but before the police arrive she tells Michel what she has done. He does not try to escape but the police shoot him in the street and he dies. Milestone of the new French cinema won Jean Vigo Prix and the Silver Bear in Berlin for the best direction.
