Former legionnaires Tony (Pierre Vaneck) and Dick (Roger Hanin) were serving in Indochina/Vietnam a gangster known only as The Maltese gave them a great deal of money, which they undertook to smuggle into France for him. But instead, they used the money to buy a money-losing bar, the Tip-Top Nightclub, from Tepere (Paul Frankeur).

In walks The Maltese ( Don Ziegler) who wants his money, and is giving them three days to repay him. Tony and Dick are in desperate need of cash to pay back the $75,000 to the mobster. So, they try to sell the club, but it's not easy when the club is losing money.

At the end of their rope, they're approached by Tepere, the former owner of their club. He offers them a way out of their problem. Tepere's proposition:

Every week a local rich gold smuggler, M. Geoffrain (Robert Le Béal) puts two suitcases of gold onto a small plane.

If Tony and Dick help Tepere and his henchman Alberto take part in the heist to steal those cases, their share after they split the loot will be enough to pay what they owe the Maltese.

At issue is that the mark is the father of Tony's golf-playing girlfriend, Bridgitte (Mijanou Bardot).

Hazel Scott shows up as a piano-playing chanteuse.

A 1958 French crime film (a/k/a "A Bullet in the Gun Barrel") directed by Michel Deville and Charles Gérard, screenplay by Albert Simonin, Charles Gérard and Michel Deville, story by Albert Simonin, cinematography by Claude Lecomte, starring Pierre Vaneck, Mijanou Bardot, Paul Frankeur, Roger Hanin, and Gérard Buhr. Screen debut appearance of Jean Rochefort. Second screen appearance of Michel Lonsdale. Final screen appearance of Hazel Scott.

The author of the police novel this is based on, Albert Simonin, has a small role.

A rare opportunity to see Mijanou Bardot, Brigitte Bardot's younger sister, and she has only a few lines. Marie-Jeanne Bardot (born 1938), known professionally as Mijanou Bardot, is a French actress and writer. She starred in the film "Sex Kittens Go to College" (1960) with Mamie van Doren and Tuesday Weld. She married a Belgian actor, Patrick Bauchau, and retired.

Pierre Vaneck was a theatre and television actor, known particularly for his television role as the father of the main character in "Fabien Cosma", as well as in many other serials ("Spring Tides", "The Garonne"). Vaneck is mostly associated with the films of Pierre Kast, a neglected auteur.

Hazel Dorothy Scott (1920 – 1981) was a Trinidadian jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representation of Black Americans in film. Born in Port of Spain, Scott moved to New York City with her mother at the age of four. Scott was a child musical prodigy, receiving scholarships to study at the Juilliard School when she was eight. In her teens, she performed at Café Society while still at school. She also performed on the radio. She was active as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first black American to host her own TV show, "The Hazel Scott Show." Her career in the United States faltered after she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1950 during the era of McCarthyism. Scott subsequently moved to Paris in 1957 and began performing in Europe, not returning to the United States until 1967.

Michel Deville's makes his feature debut without the involvement of future editor/co-writing collaborator Nina Companeez. Directing auteur Michel Deville offers tantalizing glimpses to his future recurring motifs when co-writing/co-directing here with Charles Gerard, as jolts of Deville's abrupt smash and match-cuts are layered over Dick and Tony's money handling deeds.

Michel Deville (1931 – 2023) was a French film director and screenwriter. Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors. He never achieved the level of critical and international recognition of some of his contemporaries such as François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, possibly because of his more conventional filmmaking style. Nevertheless, his films, especially his comedies from the 1970s and 1980s, were popular in his native France. Deville's comedy "La Lectrice" (1988) (The Reader) was his biggest success with international audiences. A clip from his film "Benjamin" (1968) is included in Robert Bresson's "Une Femme Douce" (1969).

Soundtrack music:
"Si je Pouvais Revivre un Jour ma Vie" - Music by Gilbert Bécaud, Lyrics by Pierre Delanoë and Louis Amade, Performed by Hazel Scott
"Viens Danser" - Music by Gilbert Bécaud, Lyrics by Pierre Delanoë and Louis Amade, Performed by Hazel Scott

A taut crime drama, full of double-crosses, pretty girls, flashy cars and an air of desperation that never lets up for the two leads. With a lively jazz score by Raymond Bernard, some nice camerawork by Claude Lecomte, the movie moves at a brisk pace.