Chi Mai (Le Professionnel)

Chi mai dates from 1971 and had already been used three times before Georges Lautner's Le Professionnel made it inescapable: in the film Maddalena the same year, in a British television series in 1978, and in the BBC's The Life and Times of David Lloyd George in 1981, where the released theme reached number two in the British singles chart. Lautner's thriller, with Jean-Paul Belmondo as an agent abandoned by his own service, appeared that autumn and fixed the melody in French memory. It was played again at Belmondo's funeral forty years later.