Jules Dassin's Rififi [The Criterion Collection] DVD.
The Movie:
Directed by American filmmaker Jules Dassin when he moved to France after being infamously blacklisted for his Communist sympathies in 1950 (during the production of Night And The City), 1955's Rififi (or Du rififi chez les homes if you prefer) is widely considered to be one of the finest heist films ever made, and for good reason. Almost sixty years after it unspooled in French cinemas and later played in America in an English dubbed version the picture still has the power to grip us and hold us riveted in complete suspense.
The film follows Tony "le Stéphanois" (Jean Servais), a jewel thief who has just finished serving five years in prison for his past offences. Given that he's just gotten out of prison, it's not surprising to learn that Tony is broke. He needs money. When he meets up with his old friend and the man he took the rap for, a Swedish gangster named Jo le Suédois (Carl Möhner), he somewhat begrudgingly says no to the invitation to help out on what should be a simple smash and grab. The plan would have been to meet up with an Italian gangster named Mario Ferrati (Robert Manuel) and snatch the jewels out of a store window. Tony soon learns that his ex-girlfriend, Mado (Marie Sabouret), has moved on and is now involved with a Parisian mobster named Pierre Grutter (Marcel Lupovici) who runs a nightclub. He shows up there, invites her back to his place, and then proceeds to beat her pretty severely for getting involved with Grutter. At this point, with nothing else going for him, Tony decides to reconsider Jo's offer. In fact, he wants to up the ante: instead of doing a smash and grab and taking the jewels from the store window, he wants to crack the safe.
Jo and Mario are in but they know they'll need help to Mario brings in a safecracker named César le Milanais (Jules Dassin) and the four thieves then set about planning an elaborate heist, one big enough to make them all very, very wealthy men… if they can pull it off. Given that Grutter is none too pleased about what Tony did to Mado and that he's got his drug addicted brother Remi (Robert Hossein) out on the streets looking to kill him and all the betrayals soon to follow, getting into the safe almost seems like the easy part of all of this.
Featuring a perfectly complimentary score courtesy of composer Georges Auric and some wonderful black and white photography from cinematographer Philippe Agostini, Rififi is a superb technical achievement. It consistently looks fantastic, with picture perfect framing accentuating the tension as the heist gets underway but also letting body movement and character quirks coyly foreshadow some of what is to come in terms of how this cast of characters evolve and react to one another. A simple close up shot of the sweat on a man's brow manages to mean so much more in the context of the story that Dassin masterfully tells (and which was based on a novel of the same name by Auguste Le Breton. Shadow and light combine in wonderful ways to create fascinating visual contrast and everything from a scene in which some men play cards for reasons that are less than initially obvious to the shots where we see how everything plays out in Grutter's posh nightclub (particularly when Magali Noël performs for the audience) are never less than beautiful to look at.
Of course, visuals are all well and good but a good movie needs more than that to be a great movie and thankfully Rififi's cast are completely game. Dassin didn't have a huge budget for this picture and so he wasn't able to cast marquee stars, but it would seem that the movie is all the better for it as we get to pass by all the posturing and ‘star value' that the producers might have insisted on had there been different actors in the lead roles. Jean Servais is fantastic in the lead. He's a conflicted man and we know by the scene in which he beats his ex-girlfriend that he is a very flawed man, prone to overreacting and not necessarily the nicest guy around. Servais plays this world weary character with the utmost believability and turns in a perfect performance. Marie Sabouret, as that ex-girlfriend, has some appealing and seductive qualities that she rightfully exploits through her take on Mado. Her character is a catalyst in a lot of ways for what happens in the last half of the film and she brings an interesting and at times somewhat unlikely screen presence to the picture. Möhner and Manuel as Servais' accomplices are also excellent as is Lupovici and yes, even Dassin in his interesting supporting role.
Of course, the highlight of the film is the heist scene. So meticulously planned is all of this that the film absolutely has to get all of the details right or it would all be for naught and Dassin scores top marks for the way in which he lets all of this play out. We're almost there with the characters, we feel their misgivings and their transgressions and frustrations and we more than certainly understand their nervousness. It all comes together marvelously and Rififi remains a mesmerizing picture, a tense but all together very real and very human picture that feels ageless as it stands the test of time and continues to entertain and enthrall.
