In contrast to all the films that we defend in Les Cahiers du Cinema, Assassins et Voleurs is innocent of any esthetic ambitions. It possesses not the slightest indication of professional conscience: a boat scene supposed to be taking place in the open sea has obviously been shot on the sand; a hotel elevator does not ascend any more than the boat floats; the same setting is made to do for several locations; the long dialogue between Poiret and Serrault, which is divided into ten or twelve segments, was clearly filmed in a single afternoon with two cameras, and so sloppily, to boot, that if we strain a bit we can hear the buses passing by the studio-hangar and the stagehands on the next set chatting cheerfully over their lunch.