Francois Truffaut called ‘Du rififi chez les hommes‘ (or simply ‘Rififi‘) the best French film noir, hastening to add that it is based on the worst French noir novel (written by August Le Breton). The film is adapted and directed by Jules Dassin, a very interesting figure in world cinema. Born in 1911 in the United States, the son of Jewish emigrants from Odessa, he was the father of singer Joe Dassin and the husband of Melina Mercouri (in his second marriage). Dassin was living in France in the year of the making of this film – 1955 – at the beginning of an exile that lasted until the end of his life (he lived until 2008) due to the fact that he was blacklisted as a communist sympathizer during the witch hunt led by Senator McCarthy. ‘Rififi‘ was thus somewhat a ‘job’ imposed by circumstances, a film made by Dassin to earn a living in exile, on a fairly modest budget. The result of these constraints was very happy: he filmed with little-known but well-chosen actors and many of the scenes are filmed in exterior, especially on the streets of Paris, because filming in studios was expensive. ‘Du rififi chez les hommes‘ won him the directorial award at the Cannes Film Festival that year and, moreover, a place in the posterity of the film’s history. It is not only one of the best heist films, but it is also a predecessor of many films in various genres.
The story. Tony, also known as Le Stephanois, is an aging gangster who has just been released after five years in prison. His girlfriend left him for the owner of a nightclub, and he spends his time and money at poker games. His younger friend, also known as Le Suedois, proposes to participate in the robbery of the display window of a jewelry store in the center of Paris. After a violent quarrel with his ex-girlfriend, Tony decides to change his plans and rob the jewelry safe, in a well-planned action, during the night. Theft goes according to the plan, the international team of four thieves gets away with a rich booty. However, the mistake of one of them puts the rival gangster gang on their trail. The violent conflict that follows will not spare any of them.
The scenes of the robbery preparation and the heist itself are models of the genre and have since been imitated and processed in dozens of variations in other films. It is said that the Paris police tried to block the distribution of the film, as these scenes could inspire real-world burglars and provide them with a ‘manual’ of the trade. But this is not the only aspect in which ‘Du rififi chez les hommes‘ is pioneering. The relationships between the gangsters, the ‘code of honor’ and the macabre scene of the funeral are a prelude to what we will see in ‘The Godfather’. It is also one of the most beautiful films set in the streets of Paris, and the directors of the New Wave a few years later applied in their films the lesson learned here. Having no financial means to hire a French team of celebrities, Jules Dassin, himself a ‘foreigner’, hired a few foreign actors, with little known faces but with remarkable artistic talents. The Belgian Jean Servais is perfect in the kind of roles that Jean Gabin and later Lino Ventura usually played in French films. The Austrian Carl Möhner and the Romanian Marcel Lupovici are also part of the cast. Among the French, I noticed Robert Hossein, an actor I really like, who was then at the beginning of his career. The cinematography belongs to Philippe Agostini, a very active operator between the ’30s and’ 50s, who abandoned this profession a few years after this film, trying, without much chance, his powers as a director. The frames are often spectacular, the still images have a real architectural appeal. The soundtrack is also excellent, including the music of Georges Auric but also the lack of music in the robbery scene. As it is often the case, the cabaret scenes in French films have their charm, and we find here a musical number whose staging seems to have inspired the generic of James Bond films. ‘Du rififi chez les hommes‘ is a treasure trove of cinematic, visual and sound elements that inspired the filmmakers who came later, but it is also an extremely satisfying film to watch, well written and well made, which even today can be an excellent entertainment. Highly recommended.