Rififi: the Grand-Père of Heist Movies Returns

Many think writer Auguste Le Breton joined the French Resistance out of opposition to Vichy’s gambling prohibition. He would survive to become a French Elmore Leonard, known for his gritty action and affinity for slang. As it happened, his source novel was too coarse for genteel American blacklisted director Jules Dassin, who joined the Communist Party in the mid-1930s, right around the time of the Great Purge and the Moscow Show Trials. In order to lose the parts that offended his sensibilities, Dassin expanded the heist scene into half an hour’s worth of wordless action. At one time banned by several countries for its purported criminal instructional value, Dassin’s French noir classic Rififi (trailer here) returns to New York for a special one-week engagement starting this Wednesday at Film Forum.

Tony “le Stéphanois” (from Saint-Étienne) is decidedly the worse for wear after his recent prison stint. He willingly took the rap for Jo “le Suédois (the Swede), whose son Tonio (Tony’s godson and namesake) he dotes on, but his health and finances are in sad shape. To make matters worse, his ex-lover Mado took up with his nemesis, gangster-night club owner Pierre Grutter. After explaining his disappointment to her, Tony will commence planning his next and potentially last big score.

Jo and their mutual crony Mario Ferrati originally conceived of the jewelry store job as a simple smash-and-grab, but Tony wants the prime cuts in the safe. Recruiting Italian safecracker César “le Milanais,” they methodically case the joint and craft their elaborate timetable. The actual half-hour of heist operations is indeed a masterwork of noir filmmaking. However, it somewhat unbalances the film. While there is plenty of good hardboiled stuff in the third act, as the Grutter gang schemes to appropriate the hot ice for themselves, but it necessarily lacks the same hushed intensity of the celebrated centerpiece.

Regardless, Rififi (which very roughly translates as “trouble”) has long been recognized as a noir classic for good reason. Like Le Breton’s books, it has a street smart persona and a street level perspective. It captures the workaday milieu of postwar Paris, especially during the odd hours of the day and night when respectable folks were off the streets. Jean Servais also creates the template for the older, world-weary noir mentor, dealing with the business end of his bad karma. He slow burns like a crock pot with dangerously faulty wiring. Just looking at his lined face makes you want to pop an Advil.

Carl Möhner (probably next most often remembered for She Devils of the SS, which is pretty much what it sounds like), is rather under-heralded for his steady, proletarian work as Jo. However, Dassin himself (billed as Perlo Vita) indulges in a bit of broad ethnic stereotyping, for supposed comic effect, as César.

On heist movie listicals with any sense of history, Rififi inevitably ranks somewhere around number one. It is a film any noir fan has to see to consider themselves literate in the genre. Very highly recommended, Rififi opens this Wednesday (9/2) at Film Forum.

Dassin’s Law

Anyone having pursued serious studies at a four year academic institution probably has a passing familiarity with drinking games. As vicious as they can get, American undergrads have nothing on Mediterranean gangsters. Indeed, one Italian fishing village’s institutionalized drinking ritual serves as the local crime boss’s instrument of social control in Jules Dassin’s 1959 classic The Law (trailer here), which opens today in the City.

In a vividly evocative opening sequence, it is clear there is a lot of want in Porte Manacore. Unemployed men lounging in the square want a job (as long as it is not too much work) and just about everyone wants Mariette, Don Cesare’s fiery young maid. Though Mariette enjoys her reputation as the town disgrace, she really wants to land a husband. She has her eye fixed on Enrico Tosso, the idealistic agricultural engineer assigned to the district, but of course, he does not have two hundred Liras to rub together. She also has to contend with the unwelcome attentions of Matteo Brigante, the more savage than suave racketeer whose power in the village rivals Don Cesare. It is he who rewards loyalty and punishes opposition through the game locals call “The Law.”

How good is the cast of The Law? No less than Marcello Mastroianni is easily overshadowed as the earnest but clueless Tosso. There is no overlooking Gina Lollobrigida though, as the passionate Marietta. At the height of her standing as an international sex symbol, she burns up the screen, particularly when facing down the reptilian Brigante, played with oily flare by Yves Montand. Rounding out the cast of international superstars is Greek actress and frequent Dassin collaborator (in Phaedra and Never on Sunday, among others) Melina Mercouri as Donna Lucrezia, the older married woman furtively involved with Brigante’s son.

With hot Mediterranean blood pounding every which way, The Law is a good clean lurid entertainment. Setting up scenes that crackle with wit, Dassin pulls viewers through at a breakneck pace. His direction often approaches choreography, like during a shadowy confrontation late in the picture between Montand and Mercouri. Indeed, the film feels like a scandal sheet adapted in the style of classical tragedy.

Filmed in gorgeous black-and-white by Otello Martelli, The Law definitely has a noir look to match its dark melodrama. Yet, for all the terrible things that happen or nearly happen in the film, it is always great fun. Truly, more contemporary film noirs should remember that lesson. A thoroughly entertaining classic making a welcome return to theaters, The Law opens today (7/2) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Rendezvous ’10: The Law

Anyone having pursued serious studies at a four year academic institution probably has a passing familiarity with a little card game called “Presidents and [let’s call it] ‘Non-Presidents.’” As vicious as it can get, American undergrads have nothing on Mediterranean gangsters. Indeed, one fishing village’s institutionalized drinking game serves as the local crime boss’s instrument of social control in Jules Dassin’s 1959 classic The Law, which fittingly plays the final day of this year’s Rendezvous with French Cinema on Sunday.

In a vividly evocative opening sequence, it is clear there is a lot of want in this small town. Unemployed men lounging in the square want a job (as long as it is not too much work) and just about everyone wants Marietta, Don Cesare’s fiery young maid. Though Marietta enjoys her reputation as the town disgrace, she really wants to land a husband. She has her eye fixed on Enrico Tosso, the idealistic agricultural engineer assigned to the district, but of course he does not have two hundred Liras to rub together. She also has to contend with the unwelcome attentions of Matteo Brigante, the more savage than suave racketeer whose power in the village rivals Don Cesare. It is he who rewards loyalty and punishes opposition through the game locals call “The Law.”

How good is the cast of The Law? No less than Marcello Mastroianni is easily overlooked as the earnest but clueless Tosso. There is no overlooking Gina Lollobrigida though as the passionate Marietta. At the height of her standing as an international sex symbol, she burns up the screen, particularly when facing down the reptilian Brigante, played with oily flare by Yves Montand. Rounding out the cast of international superstars is Greek actress and frequent Dassin collaborator (in Phaedra and Never on Sunday, among others) Melina Mercouri as Donna Lucrezia, the older married woman furtively involved with Brigante’s son.

With hot Mediterranean blood pounding every which way, The Law is a good clean lurid entertainment. Setting up scenes that crackle with wit, Dassin pulls viewers through at a breakneck pace. Particularly striking is the shadowy confrontation late in the picture between Montand and Mercouri that resembles dance choreography. In a way, it is like a scandal sheet adapted in the style of classical tragedy.

Filmed in gorgeous black-and-white by Otello Martelli, The Law definitely has a noir look to match its dark melodrama. Yet, for all the terrible things that happen or nearly happen in the film, it is always great fun. Truly, more contemporary film noirs should follow its example. It screens tomorrow (3/21) at the Walter Reade as this year’s French Rendezvous concludes.