L' ombre d'une chance (1974)

A French confidence man robs bourgeois couples of their valuable finery in Jean-Pierre Mocky’s artful melodrama L’Ombre d'une chance (1974). Mathias (played by the director) has never met a middle-class boob he’s incapable of scamming--by posing as a nobleman, he’s able to convince the nuevo riche to part with their possessions with unrivaled ease. But the con man’s faced with his most sobering challenge yet when an argument over his son’s fiancée causes him to be fatally wounded. Jenny Arasse plays the femme fatale who causes the grifter’s demise, although the Gallic beauty’s given a run for her money by the unbelievably scrumptious Marianne Eggerickx.